Moon Shadow, continues, part four...

Bonegeek: "Are you sitting comfortably?"

Wiping my hands on the skirt of my fitted kirtle, I flung the door open.
The Pedant: "How do you fit a kirtle? It's a shapeless, loose garment."

He had the sexiest voice I'd ever heard. The Star Goddess herself would be weak in the knees with his voice.
The Chronicler: "No, she wouldn't. The Star Goddess is made of tougher stuff than that."
The Pedant: "She doesn't have knees."
Big L (mistaking him for the hero): "She's seen him jerk off in a box."
The Pedant: "What you need is not a prayer or a summoning spell, it's a personal ad."

A face like a fox, angles and laughter.
The Pedant: "Angles plus laughter does not equal fox!"
The Anthropologist:It's a mokosh on his head."

Eyes the color of turquoise stones and just as bright. They very nearly matched the unusual jerkin he wore.
The Balance (who allegedly has fashion scent): "Ewww!"
Big L: "It's always about the jerkin..."

(The Chronicler notes that this seems to suggest fashion-wise, this scene is somewhere in the Renaissance.)

Turquoise leather wasn't something I'd seen before...
The Balance: "That's because it's tasteless!"

... but if designers saw how this man wore it, blue jerkins would be all over the streets.
The Pedant: "Turquoise is not blue!"
Bonegeek: "I think I need to make some turquoise armour now."
Ramble and  diversion about Maelstrom and Bonegeek's desire to get some turquoise marriage armour.

"come in," I said, warmly, "No, the position isn't filled."
The Anthropologist: "Dodgy comments..."
The Anthropologist: "He's wearing a turquoise jerkin, he has to be trustworthy!"

"I hadn't realized from the ad," he said, "but you're a Love Wizard, aren't you?" [...]
Not stupid, then. "What gave it away?"
The Pedant: "Because she's only wearing a kirtle."
The Anthropologist: "Because she has a heart in her pentagram."

Oh, my flier had finally found the guy I needed, the guy I wanted.
The Pedant: "He's literate."
The Anthropologist: "On the bright side, we haven't had any I'm not a Slut moments."

I sent a mental kiss of thanks to the Star Goddess.
The Anthropologist: "Who didn't appreciate it..."
The Pedant: "and washed her face afterwards."

Retrieving the Wabizi hand mirror from the end table, I settled next to him.
The Anthropologist: "Is that a second wave feminist hand mirror? The ones you use to inspect your own vaginas with?"
The Pedant (in some sort of flashback): "Middle-aged muff!"

If he passed the mirror's test, I'd have the perfect partner. Handing him the mirror, I said, "Look in the depths for a minute while I ask you some questions."
The Anthropologist: "Can you try to find my clit?"

The mirror reflected a truth for him nearly immediately. He had strong magic. [...] He was touching the face of a woman, both gazes filled with an intense love. She was beautiful. Her chestnut-colored hair was twisted at the top of her head.
The Balance: "Like Palin."
The Anthropologist: "Yes, yes, like Palin."

Wispy tendrils had escaped, and they framed her high-cheekboned face.
The Anthropologist: "Like Palin."

Her eyes looked kind.
Bonegeek: "Not like Palin."

"This is amazing magic," he said. "I've never heard of such a thing."
(The Chronicler wonders why, since he lives in the same bloody world setting. Is he part of the underclass? The unmagical masses? Who knows?)

In the depths of the glass, I watched as Fyord presented a box made of rosewood to the beautiful woman.
The Anthropologist: "It's a bomb, isn't it?"
The Pedant: "It's a baby's leg."

A fire crackled in a bedroom...
Big L: "We need to clarify this to be a metaphorical fire..."

...sending cozy shadows dancing across huge tapestries. Bathed in the light of flickering flames, the largest tapestry depicted fair maids picking daisies form a huge field of wildflowers while tall hounds stood at their sides.
(Tapestries are expensive things, dear reader, even today. It rather undermines their later claims of poverty and financial problems.)
The Anthropologist: "I'm making that a new category for Housekeeping fetishes!"
Big L: "You can't ... you're trying to kill us with the sips we'd have to take for that?"
The Balance: "She can, she's got the book."

Lying on a tall four-poster bed made of cherry, the woman wore a filmy gauze of virginal white. More relaxed, Fyord lay naked beside her, holding her hand. She looked ready to bolt...
The Anthropologist: "That's not a good sign."

He did it again, getting closer to that ticklish spot beneath her arm.
Bonegeek: "Oh, how erotic..."

...she picked up a pillow and bopped him over his head.
The Anthropologist: "And then beat him to death with it. Dear God, please!"

He ran his hand over her stomach, her ivory thigh.
The Balance: "She's only go one leg... it's a very expensive prosthetic."

She quivered under his touch, but fear wasn't on her face. Anticipation was.
The Balance: "It's literally there, sitting. It's a little imp by the name..."

On the love seat next to me, Fyord placed his hand over the glass protectively. "That's my wedding night," he said.
Bonegeek: "She's a voyeur."
The Chronicler notes that it's quite an invasion of privacy to look into the memories of a job applicant. Why can't she just ask him questions like a normal person? This is a setting that awknowledges "brainscans" as creepy, but somehow when you're doing it through a mirror and it's the heroine doing it, it's perfectly alright.
The Anthropologist: "This is a lot quicker than installing security cameras into everyone's houses."

From this bed, a tiny kitchen could be seen.
The Anthropologist: "Good housekeeping fetish!"

This image must have been from that morning, because Fyord was wearing his unusual turquoise jerkin...
Bonegeek: "I should hope significant time has passed, since she's thick with child."
Big L: "It could be magic semen."

"You love her, don't you?" I asked, knowing the answer before I heard it.
"With all my heart. Ceara's brother gambled away the family fortune..."
The Anthropologist: "So you have mindrape magic of many varieties, but you choose not to use it for anything useful. Like finding that rapist, instead you go off and pry on other people's honeymoon night."

"Gambling terrorizes some people," I said. "It's an addiction, like alcoholism."
"Can you treat it?" he asked with a sudden rush of hope.
"No," I said, my mind working the problem as it always did.
The Chronicler: "Because no one has asked her this before and she's thought about it before."

"Addictions are hard to treat. Wizards can Sense the illness, we can see the disease in the molecular structures of the cells, but we can't change the cellular structures."
The Balance (pained): "You can see gambling in the cellular structure..."

I looked across the room thinking with frustration of the various addicts who'd sought my help. It didn't matter what they were addicted to – alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling – I couldn't help them.
The Pedant: "But you think a Love Mage would be able to help with sex addiction."
The Chronicler: "But why would you go to a Love Mage for addiction? Maybe you could try a Addiction Mage..."

"Perhaps someday..."
There followed here an explanation about hyphens and ellipsis, how they have complicated relationships across the pages of these books.

"Then you see I need a job, a profession. My parents and I decided a long time ago to ignore my magical aptitude and focus on the family business. I've been trained in banking and investment..."
(The Chronicler: "Yes, this is the pseudo-fantasy pseudo-Renaissance setting with half-orcs, brownstones and banking and investment banking firms.")

...but Ceara's brother... after he did with my signature, well, I've been blackballed from any of the money careers."
The Anthropologist: "Can't he just report the bastard and clear his name?"
Big L: "You have seen the Police in this setting."
The Pedant: "They're only interested in cum-covered hoboes."

"I'm a Tan," he said, his dark hair hanging in his eyes.
The Anthropologist: "That's the lamest magic colour ever."
The Pedant: "Is it better or worse than brown?"

"I can't hire you," I said. The breadth of his shoulders gave me so many reasons to want to hire him.
The Chronicler: "I can only think of one there."

"But you've found your heart's mate. If you take this job with me, the love of your life will be jeopardized. You don't want to put your relationship with your wife on the line for this, believe me."
"But she wants me to get this job as badly as I want it. We have a strong relationship."
Big L: "Waspor would approve of strength."

"Neither of you understand of a Love Wizard's assistant."
Big L: "I think we can guess."
The Pedant: "Maybe she needs love, as a love wizard."

"We didn't' know what kind of Wizard you were, but it's such a respectable line of work...
There are giggles over the word "respectable".

If only he weren't so happily married. "Fyord," I said, taking his hand in mine. I worked hard to ignore the chemistry of his cells whispering to mine.
The Balance: "What? Are they reacting? Fusing together into one horrible mutant?"

If you were to take this job, you and I would have sex frequently [...]It's true that many times you'd think – you'd feel like – you were making love to your wife. Those times probably wouldn't hurt your relationship."
The Chronicler: "Because if you're fantasising of someone else whilst having sex with your boss, it doesn't actually count."

"But there're other times when you'd have to lead the spell. During those times, you'd know exactly who you were having sex with...
The Anthropologist: "Because all the other times, I'd be drugging you to the point of oblivion."

...Very few human relationships can withstand that, and from what I've seen of you in the mirror ...
The Chronicler: "What did you see? Some generic love scenes? There was no personality developed there?!"

...it would kill you and your beloved."
The Chronicler: "Why can't she trust him and his wife to make that decision? Themselves?"
The Anthropologist: "To be fair, most people would argue that having sex with someone else ruins your relationship."
The Chronicler: "True, not everyone has an open relationship... but I'm sure Dan Savage will beg to differ."

... and I wished I'd found him first.
The Chronicler: "There you go. The true reason she doesn't want him is because she can't do with just sex and wants a lover instead of an assistant."

Fyord sat silently for a moment, staring at his hands as if they could help him.
Big L: "It's weird, I feel like I have cum on my hands."

"I need a job," he said finally.
The Anthropologist: "I can sweep the cum off the floor for you when you're done..."

"Fyord, I'm a Love Wizard. I fix relationships – not ruin them."
The Chronicler: "Curious how we're on page 26 and we still don't really know what she means by that."

"I have a friend at the local Guild who might be able to guide you toward a more appropriate apprenticeship."
The Chronicler: "Maybe one in which you work in an environment where everyone wears a mask with your wife's face painted on it. Because you really shouldn't be talking to anyone else... but as long as you think you're talking to your wife. It's all okay."

"That might help," he said. "I'm looking into every possibility."
Big L: "Not looking very hard, clearly."
The Pedant: "We're back to the fact that she needs a personal ad." 

"Also," I added a warning, "Ceara is due within the month."
He looked at me and blinked. "No," he said. "She's due in two months time."
"I saw her only through the mirror, but I Sensed she's due imminently...
The Chronicler: "Imminently =/= a month."

Love Wizards deliver a lot of babies, and I'll happily deliver your child...
The Chronicler: "Because I'm that good. I see her through a mindrape mirror and I can tell... And more importantly, is there anything she doesn't do?"

He'd been so damn perfect. Grabbing the right hormones from his pituitary and his adrenal, pulling proteins from his blood to make love potions would've been so much fun.
Bonegeek: "Because biochemistry makes her hot."
The Anthropologist: "And makes us bleed."

Now I neede to make a new flier.
The Pedant: "Is it going to be described all over again?"

Moon Shadow, continued, part three...

Part One, Part Two.

The countertop was hard and not quite big enough...

The Anthropologist: "Is that some kind of Freudian slip... His insecurity over his cock coming out and being embodied by the tabletop."

 

"Love me, Gage. Hard and fast. Right now."

... I set myself at her entrance and asked, "Are you sure?"

The Chronicler: "Didn't she just tell him to do it? Is it really necessary to ask again?"

The Anthropologist: "He's read the new laws on consent."

 

My cock jerked...

The Balance: "Is that what he's doing in reality? It that why his box is in such a sad state of repair?"

 

The anecdote of the Box the Pillywiggin tried to live in was told and it was amusing.

 

One Thrust. My breath burst from me in hot gasps. Another thrust...

The Pedant: "I have the Count song in my head now..."

 

Bonegeek: "Lyric! I shouted... Oh, he's a man... (deeper) Lyric!"

 

She came with a primal screm: "Gage!"

Bonegeek: " I'm not going to scream it..."

 

Her feminine scent mingled with my strong one...

The Pedant: "Her scent of bread with his..."

The Anthropologist: "He smells of stilton, clearly, that's strong."

The Pedant: "So together they smell like a sandwich."

The Balance: "So they should have a threesome with someone who smells of pickle."

The Anthropologist: "I wonder if their children will smell of mayonnaise or some other condiment."

 

I traced her velvet ribs with my fingertips.

The Pedant: "Velvet ribs? What?! And how does he have access to them?"

 

...as my finger memorized the groove...

The Anthropologist: "Well, clearly, he's been working at it. He's got all the necessary holes prepared for easy rib-access, back during the honeymoon, things were less simple..."

 

The Pedant (singing): "Into the groove..."

 

And then my stomach gave a wretched gurgle.

The Pedant: "Medical complications! He's going to vomit in her."

 

"Hand me my panties, please."

I retrieved them from the floor, inhaling their scent as I gave them to her...

The Loinfire Club: "Eeew!"

 

The Chronicler: "He is hallucinating all of this. "

Bonegeek: "Why did he need to cast the spell?"

The Anthropologist: "Pink elephants."

 

Damn reality.

A steel-tipped, patent leather boot just missed my face...

The Chronicler: "So there are the witches!"

 

"Look at all these low-life homeless men," I heard the cop mutter to himself, slamming box after box with his heavy boots.

The Anthropologist: "Kill him! You have magic."

The Pedant: "He only has six bullets, you know."

 

My hands were sticky with come as I pulled them from my trousers. Lyric!

Big L: "So he was doing it with the box..."

The Chronicler: "Why in his trousers? Surely with no way to clean himself..."

The Balance: "Because it was really fucking cold?"

 

An I scrambled to my feet, the cop aimed for my balls, coiling his leg to unleash his worst.

The Anthropologist: "Oh, the cop is so going to wish he didn't do that."

The Balance: "The cop is mistaking him for someone else?"

The Anthropologist: "A slightly more sane hobo who has a better understanding of public decency."

 

A heartbeat before tasting pain, I Grabbed the man's ankle with my mind and twisted...

(The Chronicler notes that Grabbing works not only on a molecular level.)

 

I spared a moment to gloat. I might only be a Brown but my magic kicked ass – literally – when I need it to.

The Pedant: "Brown?"

Big L: "Brown, some sort of colour mage thing."

The Anthropologist: "Still, we've only seen the two characters do spells: he has had 100% success rate and at least two of hers have failed miserably."

 

"Stop, Pike," a woman cop said, making the cop skid to a halt... The planes of her cheekbones were interesting...

The Anthropologist: "Her face has Non-Euclidian geometry! She comes from Lovecraft!"

 

but her lips were toothpick thin...

The Anthropologist: "She's evil."

 

I wondered how the fat-assed cop liked having a woman for a boss.

The Pedant: "Or cum in his face. I thought he should have used that to his advantage in the fight. This cum has aids!"

 

"One of these is the rapist," Pike muttered. "Probably this one. He smells like sex."

The Balance: "He is covered in cum."

Big L: "Surely a rapist doesn't  need to masturbate.

The Anthropologist: "All those lonely nights between rapes, when it's raining and you can't be bothered to go out and stalk another teenage virgin..."

Big L: "That's what your basement is for."

 

So the cops were hungry for roasted scapegoat, but I had no desire to be cooked...

The Anthropologist: "We're backed to the cooking metaphors.... And I'm adding a Homemaking fetish."

The Chronicler: "Sarah Palin!"

The Anthropologist: "I'm way ahead of you, Chronicler. "

 

I'd been sleeping rough for days now, maybe even weeks, not wanting to spend my last talens...

Big L: "I assume that is a currency. No idea what it's worth..."

 

...and my shelter had been beat to shit by a cop on a mission.

Big L: "It was a cardboard box, dude."

The Anthropologist: "Maybe it was a really good cardboard box. Though it is presumably quite soggy by now what with his cum and everything."

 

I could say I was innocent until the Star Goddess walked the earth again...

The Pedant: "She can't really walk the earth being a celestial being and all that."

 

They were going to cook me over the metaphorical roasting pit, marinated in fear.

The Balance: "Marinating in fear and cum... for salty goodness."

 

faced with Pike and his mistress...

The Anthropologist: "Pike... Even his name is food!"

 

Drooping my shoulders into the picture of humility...

The Anthropologist: "It probably not very difficult to look humble in these situations."

 

...followed the detective past huge harnessed Percherons, black as pitch, into the police cab.

The Chronicler notes that a Percheron is a powerful breed of draft horse.

 

No one said a word the entire ride.

The Anthropologist: "He's going to have to pay to have that cleaned."

 

Clapping hooves provided the only sound.

The Pedant: "Clapping isn't a very hoof-like sound.... Maybe there's a goat in the back clapping."

Big L: "Or a monkey."

The Anthropologist: "But everyone knows those have cymbals."

The Balance: "Maybe it's like in Monty Python with the coconuts."

 

Sitting in the stale-smelling office, I wished for any veneer of civility.

The Pedant: "You haven't washed your hands yet."

 

Couldn't someone offer me a coffee? A cigarette? An ale?

Big L: "Or somewhere to wash his hands!"

The Anthropologist: "How much do you be that he doesn't wash his hands for the entire book?"

 

There occurred a conversation here that is off the record in which it was discussed what should be kept on record.

 

"I'm Detective Habit," the cool woman said in an emotionless voice.

The Anthropologist: "She's not going to be wearing sensible shoes, is she?"

 

But I had no alibi for anything – I lived on the street.

Big L: "Surely there are other hobos who have wandered in and noticed you in your cardboard box."

The Anthropologist: "Maybe they had him beaten up and kicked him out of their alley because of his masturbating in cardboard boxes."

 

There was something about vibrating mascara at this point. The Chronicler doesn't really remember exactly what.

 

"Where were you three days ago?"...

I couldn't be sure, could I? My life didn't have the usual rhythms of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Showers in the morning and reading the paper at night...

Big L: "But surely he notices things like darkness at night and not darkness during daylight?"

The Anthropologist: "He's too busy in his box, he never looks outside."

 

I cringed in embarrassment. Was it that obvious I'd been homeless for so long? I'd had a nice job, a wonderful wife, and a great home...

Big L: "My other cardboard box is a Porsche."

The Pedant: "It was a box which had a Porsche in it once."

The Anthropologist: "What other excuse can he have? I was playing a hobo in a play..."

 

"Have you earned any money lately?... Panhandling, maybe?"

Big L (scenting a euphemism): "Oh yeah!"

The Anthropologist: "Panhandling, eh?"

 

"Not too long ago a man I knew had a cow having trouble with calving. I helped him."

"With magic." It wasn't a question. She'd seen me Grab her cop.

The Anthropologist: "This is the stupidest magical metaphysic ever."

 

"You trying to rise in rank?"

Bonegeek: "You've had no trouble rising before."

 

"So you' helped the farmer with his cows.... And he paid you?"

 

There is some confusion and debate over the setting and where this farmer lived in relation to the cardboard boxes.

The Chronicler: "I think it's meant to be a pseudo-medieval setting..."

The Balance: "But the brownstones in the beginning chapter. They're very specific sorts of houses that only occur in east coast America..."

The Anthropologist: "But there's horses pulling the police cab. Police aren't very medieval."

The Chronicler: "But it's got cows in it."

The Anthropologist: "Unlike today.... where  we are devoid of cows."

 

"Yes, ten talens." I saved the cow and the calf, and the cheap bastard paid me nearly nothing.. cow and calf safely stabled in a warm barn, munching hay. I envied the cow.

The Anthropologist: "I should have gone back in there and eaten them..."

 

"So, when was this?" the detective asked through her razor-thin lips.

The Balance: "Have they gotten thinner now?"

 

"So, you know another woman was raped three days ago in Tar...

Bonegeek: "Tar.. tar... Big L, help me with the pronunciation?"

Big L: "No idea."

 

Tarawa

The Chronicler notes that the reader has no idea what this word denotes, be it district, city, street, province or even country.

 

I'd known it'd come to this. That's all anyone talked about. People acted like the end of the world was approaching. No girls on the street, and no women either.

The Anthropologist: "I feel it really hard to find sympathy for people who get raped."

Bonegeek: " Stupid woman getting raped..."

 

And everone looked at everyone all suspicious like.

The Anthropologist: "Or maybe they were just looking at you all suspicious-like? What with you being a hobo with cum on your hands."

 

"How should I know? You haven't told me her name."

The Anthropologist: "Isn't it kind of suspicious that he doesn't know anything about the rapes if it's all anyone talked about for days?"

 

"Melisandra Rockwater."

Big L: "What the fuck?"

The Balance: "It's a bad taste naming setting."

Bonegeek: "There's no connection or pattern between these names at all."

 

Before I'd lost my life, I'd had a job with clients.

The Anthropologist: "Clients, eh?"

The Chronicler: "Unnecessarily unspecific... The setting is vague enough to begin with."

 

"Did you rape her? Or any other woman?"

Big L: "Yes, yes, I did."

The Anthropologist: "Did she really expect him to say yes to that?"

 

"No! I'm a drunk, not a criminal."

The Anthropologist: "No, I'm a drunk public masturbator, not a rapist!"

 

They're often the same thing."

Big L: "I'm a sex offender, not a rapist."

 

"I've never forced myself on anyone."

The Anthropologist: "That's a suspiciously roundabout way of putting it."

 

"Hmmph," said Detective Habit, which could've meant anything.

The Anthropologist: "Perhaps you're being a suspicious bastard, that could be what it could mean."

 

Detective Habit returned in the company of a familiar face.

The Chronicler: "Just the face, nothing else."

 

 Recognising his mossy beard...

The Anthropologist (twitching): "Moss..."

 

...my fists itched to hit something. Maybe his face. Hard.

"This is Wizard Uriah,Chair of the local Wizard's Guild..."

The Pedant: "Do they mean Urea?"

The Balance: "Brown is the hobo level mage."

 

Do you mind if he –

Big L: "...rapes you?"

 

"Gage Feldspar! Obadiah's pig!"

There is much speculation about Obadiah's Pig, be it some sort of bizarre fantasy-esque curse or reference to something we understood not.

The Chronicler: "There's an Old Testament prophet by the name of Obadiah."

The Anthropologist: "Does he have a pig?"

 

I'd rather chew off my foot than let this man help me again.

The Anthropologist brings us an incredibly rare disease involving lip-eating that was mentioned in an episode of House.

 

"If you don't object, he'll briefly scan your mind."

"And if I do mind?" Because I did .I didn't want this creep in my braid. He'd saved me once, unasked, at great cost to himself. I never wanted to see him again. I didn't want him crawling through my brain.

Big L: "So far, Uriah seems to have nothing but nice things to him. Why the fuck is he so suspicious?"

 

I needed ale more now than I'd had in weeks – maybe since Obadiah's pig.

Bonegeek: "What the hell did you do to his pig?"

The Anthropologist: "Could it be a code word for men of a certain persuasion?"

The Pedant: "Or some kind Gay bar?"

 

Uriah held out his hand expectantly, andI laid my palm in his.

The Club: "Eeew! Cum on hands!"

 

I'd met half-orcs I'd rather touch.

Big L: "And he's probably thinking that he'd touched better half-orcs."

The Pedant: "Where the fuck are the orcs coming from?"

The Balance: "And half-orcs, no less. I wonder what the other half is. It's probably human, like with all these settings..."

The Anthropologist: "But I have a mental image of half an orc wandering around."

 

I expected to feel something, his smarmy presence oozing though my thoughts... Even as I squirmed in my chair, I told myself that his power didn't intimidate me. I lied.

Big L: "Which he would know, as he's mind-scanning you!"

 

Despite the fact I'd love to punch this man to a bloody pulp, relief flooded through me. The cops wouldn't be roasting me tonight. Thanks to Guild Chair Uriah.

The Chronicler: "What did he do that was so bad it negates saving you at great cost to himself?"

 

How had I managed to rack up two debts to this oily man?

The Pedant: "By being incompetent."

Big L: "Apparently by hating someone who's done nothing but good stuff to you. Sure, he has a green beard and bad personal hygiene..."

The Anthropologist: "He probably got that by being the at the top of his field. Everyone is too polite to tell him that he's got yellow teeth."

 

Pike showed me – ungently – to the door. He opened it for me, with a mocking bow."

The Anthropologist: "Because he didn't want you to touch the doorknob."

 

Then I trudged toward the Slug and Garden, focusing wholly on how good the Brown Worms would taste.

Big L: "But you have cum on your hands."

 

An arctic dust devil swirled across the road and wrapped around my leg.

The Balance: "Is that a real dust devil or a metaphor... This being a badly defined fantasy setting, one really can't tell."

 

It crawled up to my balls, stealing all heat.

Big L: "It's like having a dog randomly humping your leg only colder."

The Pedant: "But not licking their hands."

The Balance: "I think that needs a picture."

 

I peered through the darkness, wondering where the shout came from. I didn't want to walk through an ongoing brawl... The rapist wouldn't be attacking someone this close to the cops, would he?

The Anthropologist: "But you have cum on your hands!"

 

"What're you doing to the lady?" I growled, letting magic make my voice deeper.

Big L: "That's a retarded waste of magic!"

 

But the thugs, both half-orcs, weren't attacking a woman – they were harassing a boy.

Bonegeek: "We may have gay, interspecies, paedophilic rape here!"

Big L: "We shouldn't have laughed that."

 

The closest half-cor towered at least a foot over me. His skin was gray, even for his kind, and his sloping forehead made him look really ugly.

The Anthropologist: "Yes, be a racist. That makes you a better man."

 

...using a subtle spell to give me the appearance of looking larger than I was.

Big L: "Oh no, I mistook that man for being a few inches shorter than he actually is!"

The Anthropologist: "The Magical Accordion Man!"

 

Even half-orcs had to think twice before attacking the man they thought they saw before. Half-orcs aren't known for their intelligence.

The Anthropologist: "Cum on your hands!"

 

I walked in like I belonged there, like the biggest rooster in the barnyard.

The Anthropologist: "...who has cum on his hands!"

 

And I kicked the closes bastard in the knee with all my strength.

Bonegeek: "I'm not actually bigger, that's all I can reach."

 

He howled in pain, and I snorted, knowing I'd busted the capsule of fluid behind his knee bone. It'd ooze liquid for days. His knee would swell to the size of a goose egg in a matter of hours.

The Chronicler: "Is that anatomically accurate?"

Bonegeek (who has a degree in that sort of thing): "It's layman's accurate, let's put it that way."

 

... so I slammed the ball of my palm into his nose slits, and he howled louder.

The Pedant: "Charge-spell, touch bukkake."

The Anthropologist: "I can spell bukkake."

Big L: "I feel morally superior for not being able to.

The Pedant: "Hayhever is Plant Bukkake."

 

... but then I just convinced the lurking rats that orc eyeballs tasted delicious, like farm-fresh eggs. I could hear the rats laughing as they launched themselves towards the villain's face.

The Anthropologist: "I'm drinking for the eye comment."

The Pedant (chittering): "Eggs, eggs."

There are reminisces of Pillywiggin's wererat character who chittered.

(The Chronicler notes, incidentally that the convincing there was magical.)

 

Ha! I punched him solidly in his solar plexus, knocking his lungs straight on, turning them into empty flapping sacks.

Big L: "Maybe half-orcs have external lungs. It doesn't say they don't."

 

I jerked my knee up...

The Pedant: "It's always jerking with him..."

 

... but blood poured from his nose slits as he collapsed to the ground in a fetal position.

The Pedant: "Are half-orcs scum in this setting or did he just punch the royal family?"

Big L: "They're probably scum."

 

Filled with adrenaline, I strode over and grabbed the kid.

The Balance: "But your hands are covered with cum!"

 

Both half-orcs writhed on the cold cobblestones...

(The Chronicler notes this for more patchwork setting mysteries.)

Moon Shadow, continues, part two

Chapter Two

Bonegeek: "I hope we've changed narrator here, or else we're back to the whole transgender thing again."

The Anthropologist: "Damn you, your first person narrator shifts and unspecific anatomy?"

Huddled against the cold inside my flimsy cardboard box in the alley, I scratched my balls then cupped my hands around them for warmth...

The Pedant: "Why would they be warm?"

Big L launches into an explanation which boils down to them being like an Elephant's ears.

Their hairy presence...

The Pedant (a brief): "Eew!"

The Balance: "He's living in a cardboard box, he probably can't afford razors.

...somehow solid against the night, reminded me that I was a human, a man.

Big L (cupping): "Yup. Still there..."

The Anthropologist: "Hairy warm balls..."

The Pedant: "Jade Lee! Rescue me!"

Cold bit through my cloak and trousers, even through the newspaper I'd scavenged from the street.  Winter's touch had a way of seeping through the brown cobblestones...

(The Chronicler notes the cloak, trousers but not shirt. More importantly, these are important clues as to exactly what the fuck is going on with the setting of this book.)

With my shoulders huddled against my chin, 

Big L and the Balance furrow their brows and try this position out.

(Yes the homoerotic struggle implied there is intentional. They should be used to it by now.)

...my knees nearly to my chattering teeth...

Bonegeek: "You may need to act this out."

I wanted to cast a spell to warm my bones. But spells cost energy, and my fat stores were nearly used up. 

The Balance: "Biochemistry!!"

The Pedant: "These people do not know how to draw energy!"

I didn't want to waste muscle-I needed that to survive.

The Pedant: "Eat somebody else's then!"

An icy blast of wind attacked my box, ripping through it like it was silk.

(The Chronicler would like to note that silk is actually quite warm.)

The night would be hard, and I had just enough fat to get through. I closed my eyes and cast a spell.

With my spell of delusion I found myself back in my wife's kitchen...

The Balance: "Why won't some sort of alcohol-based delusion do?"

The Anthropologist: "Because in the alcohol-based ones the pink elephants won't stop watching him."

Bonegeek: "I'm struggling with the pronunciation of his name here... Gauge? Gouge? Geyj?"

(His name is, incidentally, written "Gage," like one of the many street names for marijuana and the widely used but incorrect spelling of "gauge".)

"Mmmm," I answered, walking behind her and snugging her tight bum to my groin.

The Anthropologist: "We don't have a category for ass."

You feel good." I sniffed her hair and said, "And you smell like bread."

The Pedant: "Presumably we now know what she's his ex-wife?"

The Anthropologist: "Yeast infection?"

She planted a quick kiss on my lips. "That's dinner you smell-pheasant soup with masawa tubers."

The Anthropologist: "Tubers really doesn't sound very tasty..."

"And bread?"

"And bread, fresh from the oven with a big thick crust just the way you like it."

The conversation rambles into whether or not a bread-scent can be sexy.

The Anthropologist: "It depends on how lonely you are and how near the bread is..."

The Pedant: "I thought it's more customary to use apple pie."

The Balance is trying to look above it all.

Big L: "You need the cane."

Luca: "And a hat."

"And for dessert?" I asked, kissing her longer and slower than she had me.

"Have you been good?" A suggestive smile played on her lips.

"I can show you good." I pulled the kerchief from her shining hair and let it fall over her shoulders. 

The Anthropologist (drinking): "That was a hair comment."

The warm firelight made...

The Anthropologist (drinking again): "Fire."

the strands glow all different shades of gold.

The Anthropologist (drinking more): "And hair again."

Lyric turned toward me...

The Chronicler: "She's called Lyric?!"

... and let the tips of her breasts caress my chest. 

Big L: "Is she baking bread nude?"

The Chronicler: "It is his fantasy. He can do whatever he wants."

Tilting her head, she smiled in my eyes and said, "Prove it."

The Anthropologist (wincing uncomfortably): "He smiled in my eyes?"

I pulled her with a demanding kiss.

Big L: "Is that pulled with a capital P?"

I kissed the side of her mouth, then the front, licking her bottom lip and tugging it into my mouth.

The Pedant: "What do her hormones taste like?"

Her lips were soft and warm, as welcoming as her kitchen.

The Anthropologist: "This is some sort of homemaking erotica..."

The Pedant: "There's linoleum on her tongue?"

The Anthropologist: "Is there going to be some sort of plot twist involving him threatening to divorce her because she someone else was let into her kitchen."

Big L: "He's been eating her loaves as well."

The Balance: "Thick crusty loaves."

Her mouth was hot and wet for me.

The Pedant: "Implying it's not otherwise?"

My tongue met hers, tasted her, drank from her. My mouth claimed hers.

The Balance: "He put a small flag on her tongue..."

The Chronicler: "That's quite some metaphor mixing."

She confessed her heavy need to me with a gasp of anticipation.

The Balance: "I can't help but hear 'need' as 'knead,' like dough..."

Why had I ever stayed away so long?

"Lyric, my love, I can't live without you. Without you I'm nothing. Nothing."

Big L: "It's too cold to wank!"

The Balance: "I can only cup my balls."

The Anthropologist: "In his box."

In her arms, It was like yesterday never happened. Time receded into nothingness, right here in Lyric's kitchen.

Bonegeek: "There's an extraneous capital there."

(The Chronicler observes it could well be a Very Important It. Or a typo.)

Lyric swept her arm back across the counter, pushing dishes out of the way.

The Anthropologist (marking it in the Book): "Is that a FIZZICKS?"

I wanted her more than I wanted dinner.

The Anthropologist: "Really? Wow?"

Big L: "We've already deduced he has very little body fat left. Can he afford to have sex before dinner?

The Chronicler: "Still his hallucination."

... stroked her shoulder blade with my fingertips. Sounds of longing escaped her.

The Anthropologist: "And then ran away, really happy to get away from this book."

Her pink nipple pearled in my mouth under the touch of my tongue...

The Chronicler: "Is that like pebbled but more classy?"

Bonegeek: "Or maybe it was secreted by her breasts and then congealed."

... and I palmed the other so it wouldn't get jealous...

The Anthropologist: "Has he named it yet?"

The Balance: "I'm sure palming means that he's stealing it."

The Pedant (with a cackle): "The Russian transgender black market will play much for these..."

Her small breasts were perfectly shaped. They melted into my palms.

The Club: "Ewww!"

Bonegeek: "Toffee breasts."

"These have haunted me," I said to her...

The Anthropologist: "Her boobs are ghosts."

Big L: "I'm just imagining cold dead clams as her breasts."

The Balance: "Only one. He's palmed the other one."

"You've haunted me, too, Gage." Lyric stretched to meet my lips, and I shook my head at my luck, to have a woman so faithful and true...

The Anthropologist: "Except when she lets another man into her kitchen."

Was ever a man luckier than me to have a beautiful and caring wife waiting for me through the hardships of my quests?

(The Chronicler notes that he really, really is deluding himself now. But we'll get to that.)

"I've missed your kisses like the desert misses the rain," she said.

The Anthropologist: "Now she's stealing lines from bad pop songs."

She gave a fluttering sound of desire.

Bonegeek: "Can we have your best fluttering noises please."

The Balance, being the best noise-producer of us all, produced an admirable insectan flutter.

The Anthropologist: "Doesn't sound very desiring."

The Balance tries again and then is reminded of the "Weird Insect Vampire Thing in the book I was reading the other day."

"You taste the same," I said, like it'd been years instead of weeks. "You sound the same."

The Anthropologist: "You still taste like bread."

The Pedant: "You should get that yeast infection looked at."

(The Chronicler notes that we still really don't know what exactly happened between him and his wife except that she's his ex in some way, be it separation through death or other means.)

But I couldn't stand to leave the warmth of her kitchen. "Let's stay here."

The Anthropologist: "He is justifiably food-obsessed, what with starving outside of hallucination land, but what's with the kitchen-obsession?"

The Pedant: "Kitchen is just a euphemism."

The Chronicler notes that the Cookie theory of the current divorce rate in America. ("It is time, women of America, to come to your senses. Halt the alarming increase in the divorce rate. Bring the homemade biscuit back to your breakfast table. We can all work together. You make 'em, we'll eat 'em. What could be more fair?")

Of course, now that The Chronicler bothers to look it up, cookies (and kitchens) have become a surprising symbol in America when it comes to feminism.

The Book of Wrong with all its doodles by the Anthropologist is, at this point, passed around the room.

The Pedant: "The Sarah Palin sex witch scares me."

I closed my eyes and inhaled. She smelled so good, so ready for me. She smelled like she loved me.

The Balance: "Damn trixy nose!"

The Anthropologist: "I don't really want to imagine the scenes where the hero and the heroin meet. She likes biochemistry and he likes food..."

I ran my fingertips over her clit...

Big L: "This book has a very high concentration of the word clit and nub."

Bonegeek: "I've never seen so many nubs!"

The Chronicler: "Well, that is possibly a good change from all the cock-centric sex scenes where they explode into orgasm at the touch of the hero's mighty manroot."

The Anthropologist: "This is possibly the one with the most foreplay..."

The Pedant: "Involving bread."

The Anthropologist: "The only one with more foreplay is probably Come to Me and that was nullified by the fact that she's an amnesiac six-year-old succubus."

Bonegeek: "Explain to me again."

The Anthropologist: "Though that probably cancelled out any empowering effect of the foreplay. The Lolita-complex business... they had to stop every five minutes so that the heroine can go: 'Oh? Am I supposed to do that? Is that supposed to happen? I don't know how sex works even though I've been a succubus for a thousand years.'"

I buried my face between her spread thighs, eating her on the counter like she was a banquet....

The Anthropologist: "Food..."

Her high-set nipples were still pearled in desire...

The Pedant: "I heard that can be a problem with prosthetic nipples."

The sagging effects on boobs with prosthetic nipples are explained and it's all very unpleasant.

I didn't tease. She wanted surcease now.

Bonegeek: "That's a really weird word to be using."

The Anthropologist: "Maybe she's trying to be all Shakespearean about it?"

The Chronicler: "Still fundamentally problematic since it can mean the opposite, what with it meaning a cessation."

Resting my palm on her flat stomach, I smiled, happy to have done something nice for my wife.

Big L: "But he wouldn't do the washing up."

The Anthropologist: "Especially since she's been cooking complicated things all day in the kitchen."

... rubbing the moisture seductively over my shaft. I was ready to explode.

The Pedant: "Like in Conan the Barbarian. All the woman he has sex with catch fire!"

The Loinfire Club reads... Moon Shadow

"Moon Shadow," by Lucinda Betts

It's the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the year (yes it is, the moon does not work on your solar calendars). And the Chronicler, being Chinese and all that, is culturally obliged to invite everyone over for the Ancient and Honoured festival of Mid-Autumn, commonly known as Moon or Lantern Festival.

Pillywiggin did quip (at a different gathering) that there must be something more to this festival than just eating and staring at the moon – after all, it'd be like calling Christmas "Shiny Tree Day" or something.

All this preamble is, of course, just building up to the fact that eventually, eventually this gathering descended into a meeting of the Loinfire Club (all present being members, but not all members are present). The Chronicler had been threatening one at some point since her return from Far Away Futureland*, but the Anthropologist was busy writing her dissertation.

For the long, more rambly story of the Pagan Rites of MoonFest. What follows is the longer and more rambly (and probably more wrong) write-up of our reading...

The Balance (pouring out the drinks): "Pick your poison..."

The Chronicler: "No, the book needs to be decided on first... Pick your poison..."

(There were many books. The long lull in meetings meant that there was a great surplus of unread books. Lady Miriam who had decided that her name was really a joke too old decided she wants a new name, in the end the Club settled on "The Pedant" as she was complaining about the grammar of the book. She also brought a new and most excellent volume by Nina Bangs, seemingly a sequel to An Original Sin from the first page, but The Chronicler is getting ahead of herself...)

As always, the book is fetched from its hiding place and the Anthropologist goes through what we're drinking for. It's been a while and we are wont to forget. The definitions are carefully explained to Bonegeek, who will be reading this evening and is new to this whole shenanigans. 

(It is also to be noted that Decadent keeps falling out from its grave behind the sofa during this session. The Chronicler regrets this greatly and it has forever ruined titular word for her. It is, incidentally, a terrible book. The Loinfire Club looks forward to reading it Officially, but the Anthropologist has spoiled us all with excerpts and to be fair, it is somewhat unlikely to happen at this rate.)

In the summary of what we all drink for, the Anthropologist ends up in a long digression about what qualifies as a Limp Moment and starts telling us about the hero of the book with the succubus who had a problem with women who consent...

The Anthropologist: "To be fair, the last and apparently only time a woman consented it was because she was luring him into some sort of evil trap in which he was tortured for information. The consequent association isn't exactly...." 

Digressions result from this and debate ensues. Bonegeek, reading ahead, is sniggering over the contents of Moon Shadow.

The Anthropologist: "Can we start reading before Bonegeek dies?"

Bonegeek reads...

I needed the perfect man.

So, I prepared to cast the Rurutu spell, a spell lost and uncast for millennia. Maybe longer.

Bonegeek begins giggling uncontrollably: "I'm sorry... I know, we're just on the second paragraph..."

With a shrug of my shoulders, my thistle-colored robe fell to my feet, a puddle of silk. My nipples hardened in the room's cool air-and with anticipation. I became increasingly aware of my desire hormones coursing through my system.

The long, lilac-colored feathers of my wand vibrated...

Big L: "She has some kind of wand. Is that a euphemism?"

(Vague reference to those Harry Potter extracts where the word "wand" is replaced by the word "cock" are murmured.)

The Pedant: "The nipples haven't pebbled yet, so it might not be a woman..."

The intricate hearts carved into the ebony floor began to shimmer with golden light as they channeled the earth's electromagnetic energy.

(The Balance: "She's a sexual compass.")

Tracing the ancient Rurutu glyph in the air with my wand, the feathers, lavender and orchid, quivered and danced.

The Pedant: "Is she trying to summon a lesbian with all the lavender?"

Big L: "Shall we just have a category of stupid magicks?"

I stepped into my heart pentagrams, easing the arch of my foot into the proper golden groove

Bonegeek: "We've got a foot fetish going on here..."

Standing for a moment, I allowed the pulsating energy to reset the rhythm of my heart.

Big L: "Reset?!" 

The Anthropologist: "Medical complication!"

My blood flow slowed, but pulsed with increased force. It inundated my smallest arteries...

The Pedant: "That implies she doesn't have blood in her arteries normally, before the start of the ritual..."

The Anthropologist (drinking): "Medical complication!"

...imbuing them with oxygen and nutritious glycogen.

The Balance: "Does it count as a medical complication when it's doing what it's supposed to do?"

The Pedant: "Again, implying it wasn't doing this before."

My fingertips, my clitoris, my lips, and the tips of my toes-every small, erogenous part of my being swelled with this thick, slow blood.

The Pedant: "Her blood is flowing backwards?"

And the hormones of desire.

The Anthropologist: "Is it possible she's some sort of bacterium?"

The Pedant: "They do have extremely active sex lives."

The Anthropologist: "If this is an episode of House..."

Secretions from glands in my cervix moistened and lubricated the walls of my vagina.

The Balance: "It's very, very... precise."

Under the spell's strength, my tingling feet...

The Pedant: "Tingling feet is symptomatic of bad circulation."

...my mind focused on the paper at the center of the hearts. The paper's microfibrils.

Bonegeek: "That's a sentence. The paper's microfibrils."

A debate ensues on whether or not paper can have microfibrils (rather than microfibers, for that matter.)

(The Chronicler, having too much time on her hands, has consulted Azrael, our resident biochemist, and it emerges that Microfibrils is probably not the dominant structure of paper and she probably means microfibres, but decided to be a wee bit more pretentious.)

The Anthropologist: "Maybe it's an activation phrase or something. Sort of like, By the Power of Grayskull...

...I concentrated, hunting specific complementary protein structures within my own chemistry...

The Balance: "Why is there a bad biochemist writing a romance novel?"

Bonegeek: "Oooh... biochemistry turns me on?"

The man I sought had to have particular testosterone distributions...

The Club erupts into giggles.

The Chronicler: "What sort of distributions, pray tell?"

Bonegeek: "I will, in fact, tell you, dear Chronicler. As the book does kindly enlighten us."

His dopamines and serotonin needed to be just right. Endorphin triggers needed to be easily accessible. 

The Anthropologist: "Via a button, perhaps."

His tears and sweat and semen needed to be worth all the effort I'd expend in extracting them.

Big L: "I feel like we should be drinking for something, but I'm not sure what."

The Anthropologist: "Bad biochemistry?"

Bonegeek: "The category should be called Biochemistry Makes Me Hot."

Deep in this unconventional spell...

The Chronicler: "You can say that again..."

(And just to recap for readers who aren't following, the narrator is casting a spell to summon a man with the correct testosterone distributions.)

Power from the etchings pulsed through the balls of my feet, up adrenaline-laden pathways in my calves and legs, through the core of my body and to my brain...

The Anthropologist: "What brain?"

With the right assistant I could cure the anguish suffered by the victims of the most persistent serial rapist in living memory...

Big L: "That's a turn off..."

The Anthropologist: "Shall we have a category for non sequiturs?"

The Pedant: "No, because we'll die."

The Anthropologist: "So many good categories are vetoed because of that."

Perhaps, with the help of the right assistant, we could actually find the rapist and bring him to justice...

The Anthropologist: "As opposed to doing what? Not actually finding the rapist and bringing him to justice. What have them been doing so far? Arresting random people in the street?"

(The Chronicler notes in hindsight that the Anthropologist spoke too soon.)

My perfect man also needed some magical abilities...

Big L: "Not to mention the perfectly distributed testosterone."

The Balance: "All that hot dopamine."

Any little aptitude could flourish in the proper environment. I'd provide that environment.

Big L: "All I'm seeing is lots of Petri dishes."

In short, I needed a hero, one worthy of the Star Goddess herself.

The Pedant: "Which one?"

Discussion and pedantry resulted and the Pedant finally concluded it is quite possible that this a reference to a legend that involves some sort of incestuous mother-son love.

By necessity, the Rurutu spiked my nipples...

Big L: "I thought they were already hard twice?"

The Anthropologist: "Maybe it's like in Cupid's Melody where the heroine's breasts kept getting bigger. Like somebody just pulled a ripcord, and they start swelling every time she turns gets on by the hero."

The Pedant feels that it may be something like having dinghies full of boulders strapped to her chest. 

I couldn't Grab the right hormones unless a cascade of reactions had started. 

(In case anyone has thought all this self-fondling and magical horniness is for any other function, especially for its own sake, the presumed heroine is actually using herself as some sort of magical biochemical factory. She then magically "Grabs" them from herself and... well, read on...)

The wetness between my thighs, my pebbled nipples...

The Pedant: "Yay! Pebbled nipples..."

(The Club was waiting for the use of that ubiquitous phrase.)

... told me the cascade had properly begun.

The Pedant: "Has she just wet herself?"

The Chronicler: "Some sort of Watersports fetishist?"

Bonegeek: "Don't forget the feet."

But precision was required. Cautiously, I slid my legs until my labia was positioned exactly in the center of the hearts.

I paused a moment, absorbing the thrumming of the hearts beneath me, then I shifted two degrees west.

The Anthropologist: "Her floor is vibrating?!"

Now I was perfectly aligned-the electromagnetic energy of my body throbbed in time with that of the earth's field.

The Pedant hisses at the mention of "the earth's field"...

The spell directed my position-legs spread, my feet flat on the floor, one in the Hiva Ea groove and the other in the Hova Ua.

The Anthropologist: "How do you spell that?"

Debate ensues on what exactly do these words mean and what tradition the author was putting over a barrel. No, the Loinfire Club still doesn't know.

I needed the wand, couldn't release it, but my other hand ran the length of my stomach, hard and flat, skimming the curve of my breasts.

The Balance: "Is she just groping herself now?"

The Anthropologist: "Her floor has a built-in vibrator, what do you expect?"

I slid my fingers slowly, as slowly as my beating heart.

The Chronicler: "Not very slow then."

Remembering to breathe...

The Anthropologist: "Very important, that."

... I slid them against the smooth skin that sheltered my clitoris...

Bonegeek: "Unusual anatomical design..."

Grab, said the spell. And as my heart pentagrams pounded beneath my back and my ass, I Grabbed. 

Bonegeek: "I want to clarify, that's Grabbed, with capitals."

Big L: "That has to be mystical, then."

The Anthropologist: "It's not usually one's floor telling one to Grab with Capitals in these scenes."

Within my personal biochemistry, I sought proteins that would bind perfectly to his.

There is much debate on whether or not this makes sense. We wonder if she means some sort of blood-sharing process (c.f. renaissance beliefs of what happened during sex) or if she was referring to some actual physical bonding that would mean them become some sort of Siamese twin. Azrael, who is an actual biochemist, is sorely missed though his comments and opinions will later be added (maybe).

Bonegeek: "Maybe she's like Prozade? That's how it works"

The Chronicler: "What?"

The Pedant: "It's a very good prosthetics application..."

I wanted penetration. Real penetration. But that wasn't what I'd get. Not here or now.

The Pedant: "She has a wand!"

The Balance: "It has feathers on it."

The Pedant: "But they are dildos with fuzzy cat tail things on them." 

With slow deliberation, I slid two fingers into the hot, tight folds of my sex.

Bonegeek: "Dear god, I hate that use of the word."

Grab, said the spell.

The right hormones were available, and I Grabbed.

The Balance: "Biochemistry!"

But a niggling fear danced in the back of my brain. Were my standards too high? I'd cast this spell three times in the last year with no luck.

Big L: "Has she been altering the spell at all? Maybe she's not doing it right?"

The resulting fliers each brought back unacceptable prospects...

The Anthropologist: "I want Christ as a Porn Star."

Big L: "So what? I want perfectly aligned proteins but I don't mind about the amino acids?"

The Pedant: "I want him to cook and clean, but he can wear odd socks."

Big L: "Fliers... what does she mean?"

The Anthropologist: "I was just thinking, you know, a sort of leaflet advert sort of thing."

Big L: "Why would she..."

The Anthropologist shrugs. 

The Pedant: "Maybe they're sort of mystical spirit-birds? Messenger spirits or something flangey like that."

Big L: "Now I've got this message of little memos flying about and doing her will."

...men who'd seemed so promising at the beginning but lacked the proper concentrations of spine or semen or serotonin in the end.

The Balance: "Biochemistry!"

The Chronicler: "Alliteration helps not your lists of chemicals."

The Anthropologist: "Well, if he has vertebrae in his kidney, it's quite a serious problem.... Maybe the spell has to be really, really specific. Like a demonic contract. She remembers all the details about his testosterone, but..."

The Pedant: "She forgot the spine."

The Anthropologist: "Oh no! He has his spinal column in his face!" 

The Pedant: "It could lead to interesting sexual positions."

The Anthropologist: "Such as, the Blob... the Blob turned upside down.... the Blob suspended from the ceiling with a tentacle..."

I didn't want triplets, figurative or otherwise.

Big L: "What? Someone can be the Perfect Man but if he has twin brothers it ruins everything?"

The Pedant: "Maybe he won't want to share?"

The Anthropologist: "But if he's the Perfect Man, he will."

Legs spread, my head thrown back, I received inadequate relief...

The Anthropologist: "Inadequate? That's not very sexy at all..."

The Balance: "They're stealing your Teacher** porn."

An orgasm, firmly controlled, rippled through me, leaving me panting but not out of breath ...

The Anthropologist: "Yup, Teacher porn."

In the thrall of the spell, I'd Grabbed the required proteins from my adrenal gland and my pituitary, from my blood, as hormones were generated and broken down.

The Pedant: "But that's physically impossible!"

Bonegeek: "You forget the capital G in Grabbed. Magic."

The Pedant: "But if you don't have your pituitary gland you die!"

(The Chronicler notes that this is something of a badly constructed sentence. It is easy to misunderstand that the heroine – unnamed at this point – has been Grabbing her pituitary gland and dumping it places, as opposed to Grabbing the proteins from the glands and blood.)

I'd Grabbed those proteins and put them into my tear ducts...

The Pedant: "Aaah! Itchy!"

Now, I wiped those protein-laden tears from my eyes with a sterile white handkerchief, and wrung the tears onto my wand.

The Pedant squeaks and hits herself.

The tears would go directly onto the paper, onto the flier. Now I could affect the paper, prepare it to travel the city and countryside, riding the breezes, searching and seeking.

Big L: "Wow, it actually is a flyer."

The Anthropologist: "I told you so. I came up with a simple explanation and you came up with a more complicated if more logical one... who's right now?"

I wrung the handkerchief onto my feathers, filling the air with an electric sizzle. I held the wand over the paper flier, holding my breath in hope.

The Pedant: "I'm a better witch than her."

Big L: "I'm fairly sure I'd make a better witch than her."

The Pedant: "Maybe, you have a male witch look about you."

The Balance: "It may be the beard."

Energy sparkled off my wand, dripping golden glitter onto the paper then evaporating...

The Balance: "Those damn golden showers again."

Satisfied, I lifted myself fully from the spell, brought myself to normal consciousness. The throbbing from the hearts finally quieted and then ceased.

No Wizard had cast the Rurutu spell in millennia, but I felt its strength now.

Bonegeek (after staring at the page for a while): "What's going on with the grammar her?"

The Balance: "Biochem makes her hot."

Big L: "It involves capitals letter in strange places, what else can you say?"

The Anthropologist: "Well, everyone knows that capitals are mystical."

Would the Wizard's Guild disapprove of the use of my spell? Had it been retired for a reason, or just lost in time? I didn't know.

The Anthropologist: "You could have asked."

Big L: "Nor has she even bothered to check, apparently."

Bonegeek: "Pedant, just put fingers into her ears and just say lalalala until I tell you to."

The Pedant: "I'll just drink."

I didn't thrive on scorning the opinion of the Guild, but my need for the perfect assistant outweighed any girlish warnings Guild Chair Uriah or his minions might have.

The Chronicler: "Girlish?!"

Big L (valley-girl-esque): "Oh my god! Oh my god! It's going wrong."

The Anthropologist: "Now he's Intriguing Rivers of Male BLAH."

Conventional solutions weren't available to the rape victims who were just recently filling my waiting rooms. To relieve their misery, no spell seemed too arcane, too bizarre to try

The Chronicler: "Did you charge them money?"

The Anthropologist: "Now I'm going to picture this woman as Sarah Palin***!"

The Balance: "She could be. We haven't had any physical descriptions of her yet."

The Pedant: "Oh God! Now this is going to end up on some Republican Blog, isn't it?"

The Anthropologist: "What, just to show the moral degeneration of Liberalism?"

The Balance: "Sarah Palin does SEX MAGIC! That's going to be quite a headline."

A long conversation results. The Chronicler suspects it's all in the hopes that the quotes will be Grabbed and the blog more widely noticed by the political commentators out there. Or not.

Shrugging into my silky robe, I walked down the narrow stairs to the tiny garden in the back of my brownstone.

The Pedant: "She's not a proper witch, where is her woolly jumper and huge boots?"

In the bitter cold air, only the holly and rhododendrons had any color, a withered green. Everything else was brown and gray.

The Balance: "She has a crappy garden, even for winter."

The heat that had permeated my body during the spell still lingered, but the warmth wouldn't last long on this bitter morning. 

The Anthropologist (rather overly enthusiastic): "Heat!"

The Pedant: "She's be doing a dark sexy spell in the middle of the morning? Is it just me or does that just sound wrong?"

My feet cringed against the icy earth, and I had to force myself to relax them, to flatten them. 

Big L: "What's wrong with her feet?"

The Anthropologist: "How the fuck is she walking? Has she bound feet?"

Bonegeek: "Chinese foot binding cake!"

Speaking of bound feet, Bonegeek begins an anecdote about this pediatrist who got a cake in the shape of a bound foot for their leaving party.

The Anthropologist: "Did it have coconut flakes of peeling dead skin?"

Bonegeek: "It did have the yellow toenails in icing."

The Anthropologist: "I never realised they had such wild parties. Someone should make a soap opera about the wild and wacky adventures."

They couldn't read the electromagnetic field if they were curled defensively against the cold.

Big L: "They're trying to get as far away as possible from the rest of her."

Squinting in the late winter sunlight, I climbed to the top of a small hillock covered in hoary, dried grass, just behind my fountain.

The Balance: "She lives a brownstone, yet has a fountain in her back garden?"

Bonegeek: "It may a cheapass plug-in one from B&Q."

Glad for the stillness of the air, I again let my robe fall to the grass at my feet.

The Pedant: "The witches I know would have thistle in their garden to ward against this." 

Ignoring the scent of my own juices on my hand...

(The Chronicler notes that this is a sign of things to come in the chapter following.)

I thrust my wand into the... sky.

Bonegeek: "Thank god she said sky! There's an unfortunate page break here."

The Pedant: "This reminds me of the course that I ran away from. The one where we had to 'anoint your wands with your sex.'"

The Anthropologist: "Which course was this?"

The Pedant: "I'm not giving you any more details. This is going on the internet... We all balked since we're British and quit quietly."

The Anthropologist: "Is this the same one you're talking about before..."

Ramble results.

Electrons crackled off my wand into the atmosphere, changing the temperature immediately. 

The Anthropologist: "Is this why we have a hole in the Ozone Layer?"

The Chronicler: "Ozone layer and Global Warming two different things..."

A warmth, uncharacteristic of mid-winter, surrounded me.

Bonegeek: "She's changing the climate?!"

Big L: "More importantly, why didn't she make it warm before she went outside naked or even before she took her clothes off?"

The temperature change brought a damp wind from the sea, thick with briny salt. At my bidding, the breeze immediately lifted my flier aloft and carried it away.

There's a long and rambling debate in which the essence of it was:

The Anthropologist: "How do we know she's not an Orang-utan?"

The Chronicler: "Because we know she's Sarah Palin?"

The Anthropologist: "She could be the weird love-child of an Orang-utan and Sarah Palin."

Now I only had to sit back and wait.

And hope.

(The Chronicler notes that there is a rather obvious quip that we missed here.)

_____

Footnotes

*Everyone knows that the distant cities of the east with their clean and efficient transport system, sleek underground trains, towering skyscrapers, air-conditioned walkways, outdoor escalators, matchbox-like livings spaces and dense shroud of smog are Lands of the Future.

** No, this probably doesn't make sense to you, dear reader. But little of this in-joke-riddled mess does, anyway and the story is too long and complicated to explain. Suffice to say it's not about real teachers and is tangentially related to Maelstrom.

***This does merit some explanation. The Loinfire Club doesn't – well, rather, the Chronicler doesn't really want to get too political with this somewhat flippantly started running joke of the evening, but well, we're called the Loinfire Club, our subject matter should be self-evident. Earlier in the evening, the chatter had descended to the topic of the US presidential elections and the McCain-Palin ticket. Palin, being a divisive figure, generated much chatter and the bit that repulsed/enraged/shocked us all the most was the fact that under her reign as Mayor, women paid for their own post-rape examinations, which cost something between US$500 to 1200. Of course, Palin has been denying any knowledge of this, but she did appoint the guy who passed the new regulations into place and also sign the documents concerning the cutbacks in funding. (Either she's really oblivious or lying, neither really being a good trait.) If the dear reader wants more, a google of "rape kit" and "Sarah Palin" should render them more than they want to know about the matter. This really wasn't intended to descend into political debate, it's mostly to justify the continued reference to Palin's callousness to rape victims. Oh, and the bit about her being a soccer mom.