Chapel Orahamm's Blog, page 9

The Warden’s Cabin: Ch 5

A wedding of thirteen women, the Husband’s Quarters had not seen the like in almost a century, from what I was emphatically told more than once by the Mayor when I provided him documentation for the town hall from Mrs Fairchild.

It had been a subdued ceremony, one taking place in what they referred to as a chapel. The room, with a few hand-carved pews and many yards of white lace and ruffles, had been quickly decorated by Mrs Fairchild and an assistant matron by the name of Mrs Bonnet. I had not expected, quite literally after enjoying tea for the first time, to find myself within a chapel with fifteen women present, thirteen of whom I would be arranging transportation for to my cabin shortly after the ceremony. Bread and wine were exchanged, as were promises and shy smiles. With signatures on documents, two copies of each, one set of copies to be left in the Husband’s Quarters and one set to be left in the town hall, my family changed from me and me alone to fourteen.

And I still hadn’t figured out who was who.

The mayor obtained a carriage while I walked the hour to my farm to talk with the person overseeing my sheep and cattle herd. Apparently, far off to the end of the acreage, the man had gotten himself off to, and my feet throbbed from walking the mountain and village. I turned back into my tiny house with the courtyard sized for one twiggy grapevine that had seen itself well past its prime. 

Inside, I took apart everything of comfort, everything familiar, and everything I would need in my new house in Eden. Slowly, chests, bags, and boxes accumulated at the door while my two-room house and the sheds coughed up their contents. The house had been my father’s and his father’s before. Now, three generations and I were ending a long family line in the little adobe residence.

“Are you ready, Mr Wilkinson?” The herdsman stood in the door frame, casting shadows across my meagre belongings.

“Mr Thomson, nice to see you. No. I -” I collapsed onto the edge of my four poster bed rail. The wrench had torn the bolt, making it nigh impossible to take apart. “I don’t know that I am. You have a wife?”

Mr Thomson leaned his hook against the inside wall and came over to take a look of the muck up I had made of the hardware. He dug out a can of oil and a pair of tools. “I do.”

I held one of the wrenches steady as he twisted against me to break the bolt altogether. “Pa died, and I never knew Ma. Now I’m taking women up into the hills and I don’t right know what I’m to do with them.”

Mr Thomson shrugged. “Not much to be done other than learn who your new wife is. It’s a sleepover that never ends. If you get lucky, it’s a sleepover with your best friend.”

It had been the better part of a decade and a half since my father had let me have anyone over the house. A sleepover had never occurred. Maybe it had been common for other boys in the village, but father had always been too busy with the herd and needed my help. I nodded though, if only to preserve face. There was no use in Mr Thomson knowing that I had missed out in this social event.

“Nothing to worry about, Mr Wilkinson. Take your time. Get to know her. That’s the best you can do. We’ll have the herds up to you after calving season. Should be plenty of time to get your fences set.” Mr Thomson caught the footboard as it fell away from the rail. He helped me set aside the frames and finish collecting the last of the tools into one of the boxes.

The clatter of shoed hooves and carriage wheels told me my time was up to bid farewell to childhood memories. The old adobe house would be sold to someone else in the village. The proceeds would be taxed at the town hall, and the profit would be sent up to the Warden’s Cabin for me to pocket. I surveyed the mess before tugging on my hat and heading out the door.

xxx

The carriage left us at the bottom of the trail. Staring up the mountainside, I was faced with the realization that I had not thought to clear it. A hand touched my elbow. I flinched and turned to one of the women gathered around me in their white dresses and scarves, each holding a halter of a beast of burden. “Noele?” I guessed. A heart-shaped mole on her cheek had stuck in my head during the ceremony.

“The mules are ready.” She reassured. It wasn’t that the beasts were mules. There were a couple horses, a handful of donkeys, a pair of jacks, and several well-trained steer. I appreciated the reassurance, but I was still nervous at the prospect of getting both the women and the creatures through the old-growth forest. I pulled my machete from my pack and nodded.

“Do you have another one of those, Mr Wilkinson?” One of the taller women asked, pushing her sleeves up around her elbows.

“Have you ever wielded one?” I gulped, afraid for someone else getting hurt.

“Quite often in our fields. We work the pasture behind the Quarters, and the cactus can get quite thick over a season of fallow.” She smiled. I wished I could remember her name in that moment.

“If you’re sure. I do hope someone in the group learned medical care?” I ventured as I pulled out a pair of machetes and handed them to the woman who spoke up. “Solene, Mr. Wilkinson.”

“Was I that obvious?” I stammered. Solene handed the second blade to a different woman.

“You look like a startled lamb, Mr Wilkinson. I can only imagine suddenly being shouldered with all of us, that you might struggle with our names. She’s Desiree,” Solene pointed to her friend who was smiling with scary glee at the blade in her hand.

“Desiree, yes, thank you, Solene. Um, you’re not going to kill me with that, I hope?” I ventured. Desiree’s green eyes bounced to my face before going back to the machete.

“Of course not, Darius.” Her use of my first name caught me by surprise. I wasn’t against it. “I make baskets, and the fact you keep your knives this sharp gives me promise to have fine splits in my rattan. Just a bit of daydreaming about the future.”

“You know what you’re doing with it too, I assume?” I pushed into the underbrush and started a path with her and Solene. The women behind us brought up the animals.

xxx

We stood, breathing heavy, in front of the Cabin. The evening had set well past into midnight. The moon had needed help lighting our path. Everyone held fat-drenched torches, casting the building in an eerie yellow and orange glow.

“Well, it’s definitely a lot bigger than I expected,” Thea pulled the cargo bags from her donkey and set the boxes at the doorstep. Fluer and Odette followed her lead.

“Will it work?” I asked the lot of them.

“There’s no courtyard,” Isabella noted, setting down a pair of cast iron pans with the boxes.

“No, not yet. There’s an apple orchard and garden next to the house that I’ve paced off to turn into a formal courtyard for you. Unless you all have a different idea?” I ventured.

“That sounds like a lovely idea,” Aurelia smiled, taking the halters of several of the beasts of burden. “Is that corral patched?” She nodded toward the side of the house where the outbuildings lay.

“It is, and the closer barn has proper stalls if we want to stow the horses for the evening. There’s a turnout, but I haven’t mended the fence yet.” I helped remove the last of the luggage from the last donkey.

“I’ll help with that in the morning,” Giselle chimed in as she helped Aurelia take the creatures to the barn and corral.

“I guess that leaves us with getting this stuff inside for the evening and sleeping?” I took the heaviest of the boxes and lumbered up the steps. “Do you two want us to wait to figure out rooms?” I called to Giselle and Aurelia before they could disappear around the building.

“No, go ahead and let everyone choose. We’ll get these guys settled,” Aurelia called back. “Oh, what do you want done with the chickens?” She pointed to the baskets that held the women’s flock.

“Tack room’s about to have all the bridles and bags, huh?” I ruffled the back of my head in thought. “Oh! There’s a skinny stall in there. Not sure what it’s for, but the horses aren’t going to like it. There’s an old ladder up in the hay loft, I’ll come pull it down after I get a fire started and we can use that for a roost.”

“Sounds good.” Giselle waved me to the house.

“I’ll stay on the deck and wait for them if they need something,” Thea ventured as she set her bag in the house.

“Thank you. Here, if you’re going to stand out in the cold.” I draped a sheepskin robe around her shoulders. Her little smile left my heart fluttering in my chest. “I’ll get a fire going for all of us.” I walked through the door.

“Please and thank you!” Thea made sure I heard her.

The rest of the group was either moving their bags further into the house, or standing in awe of the three-story living room.

“Same feeling,” I chuckled, pausing next to Odette who was staring at the stars through the windows.

“The sky is so much bigger when you get away from the town. I’ve never lived somewhere that I couldn’t see a wall,” she confided.

“I hope you all enjoy the woods out here.” I pulled out the box of matches and set up a pile of kindling and fluff. Three strikes and I had a low flame smoldering.

“I brought candles,” Fluer ventured, pulling out a long box of dipped candles.

“Awesome. I don’t have any stands other than the one in my kitchen box.” I pointed to one of the wooden crates.

“No worries! We’ve got several,” Fluer continued unloading her box.

“Help!” A scream came from outside. 

I dropped the matches on the stone hearth and dashed for the door. “What? What’s wrong?”

Thea pointed to the barn. “Snake!”

“Snake?” I yelled, jumping down the deck stairs two at a time. “Snakes aren’t in season, yet.” But the women in the barn were yelling otherwise.

Skidding through the door, I found Giselle and Aurelia backing a horse out of one of the stalls. “Snake? What snake?”

“In the corner!” Aurelia pointed to the far stall.

I grabbed the shovel and hoe sitting against the wall next to the door.

“I’ve got the horse,” Giselle backed the bay up further. Aurelia motioned for the hoe.

“Did you see what type?” I crept toward the stall. Getting bit by a snake was not something I felt like experiencing on my wedding night.

“A dead type,” Aurelia hissed as she crept up to the other side of the stall door and looked in with me.

“Brown, black?” I whispered, as we both poked at the straw.

“Light brown.”

“Did it rattle at you?”

She frowned, shaking her head. Flicking an eye toward us then back to the corner she waited on my lead as I slowly inched into the dark stable. “Over there.” She tipped the top of her hoe towards the far corner where the slick shine of scales beneath hay caught in the candlelight. It looked like a hybrid’s pattern.

“I’m going to unstring it, you watch and see if you can figure out where its head is,” I directed.

“You’ve got the shovel. I’ll pin it if it comes my way.”

Carefully, I poked the creature, unfurling coils and inching the cold beast from it’s bed. Lethargic, it didn’t dash away from us like it would in summer.

“There!” Aurelia snapped down her hoe, the metal thunking in the packed dirt. Sure enough, she had the beast a third of the way up, exposing the spade-shaped head indicating the beast’s venomous nature. Quickly we had it dispatched and I took the corpse out to the garden. Aurelia helped round up stones while I dug a hole and we buried the corpse under a fruit tree. She rolled rocks over the top of the hole to keep creatures digging it up in the night. It wouldn’t do to release the chickens to the yard if they would be hunted by raccoons or coyotes called in from a dead snake.

“I’m relieved,” I ventured to Aurelia.

“About?” she asked, studying the stars swathing the sky in a brilliant white scarf.

“Twofold. That you would be willing to call on me for help, and that if I wasn’t here, I think you would have been capable on your own to have disposed of the creature.”

She chuckled at that admittance. “Do you see us as weak, Mr. Wilkinson?”

I flinched, caught in trying to figure out how to answer that appropriately. “I was nervous about that, yes. I know it’s tradition to keep women in the house and the courtyard, away from prying eyes. That girls are sent to the Husband’s Quarters to await an assignment to some man when she’s finally of age to be a woman. Little else was shared with me growing up. What I know is from books and whispers. Some say women are a force to be reckoned with. Some tell me they are dainty, fine porcelain liable to break at the slightest provocation. All of you have surprised me today in your willingness to scale the mountain with little more than a shared muttered word of tender feet and a need to sit for lunch, which any respectable person would need by the time it occurred.”

Aurelia smiled at me, a charming, if maybe dismissive look. I found it difficult to understand exactly what she was feeling with those words. “I think you’ll find living with us to be an interesting adventure, Mr. Wilkinson.”

“Mrs. Wilkinson?” I asked. Her smile fell in confusion at the name, an eyebrow raising.

I smirked at her reaction to it. “Sounds a bit formal, doesn’t it?”

“A little bit for out here in the mountains away from the village.”

“Call me Darius?” I asked.

Aurelia offered me a hand. “Aurelia. Nice to meet you, Darius.”

Chapel Orahamm (C) 2022-2023. All Rights Reserved.

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A Rant: From the Author turned Reader

If you haven’t been keeping up with my other site, I have a book review site called Books in the Cottage going where I’m starting back into reviewing books. It’s been quite lovely to get back into reading and studying other people’s thought processes and expressions of observation.

Today, I wanted to find a book on my Libby app to read because holding a physical book was going to kill my wrist (surgeries last year helped a lot, but there’s still a level of tenderness). So, scrolling, found an m/m romance novel. Not something I expected to find on my library’s listing, but quite happy to see it. I had noticed one on there last Thursday, but I’m not much of one for the modern-day drama and that seemed to be the plot, so I left that one alone.

For me, I read quite a bit of het-rom, yuri, yaoi, and bl. So, this didn’t feel out of place for me to read.

I hit the spice scene and I am just livid.

There’s this thing that goes off on male authors writing women and it coming across as ‘she proudly bounced boobily down the stairs’ just mentioning stuff that women wouldn’t write, but men would fixate on. There’s also this gatekeeping bit about gay men hating on women writing m/m romance because it reads like fetishizing.

I’m a transguy/non-binary (still working on which label I want to claim) so I’m one to talk, right?

This. This book. Specifically this spicy scene I ran into. It was that.

It made me mad.

I have a soap box and this is directed at romance novelists.

If you are going to write spice, you need to understand that you may be a reader’s first introduction to explicit content. You may be the reader’s first understanding on how that anatomy fits together. You might be their first introduction to how to orgasm. I have hardcore opinions on women writers writing het-romance and perpetuating myths of how an orgasm works because they themselves haven’t had one by way of a partner. It sets up impressionable young women with little experience to think they should get off like these characters and end up starting to feel terrible about themselves because they can’t get off the way the book says.

This m/m book set me off because if some poor young guy read this and tried what was written, they could get hurt. At least find anal scary after the fact.

Romance Novelists need to understand their responsibility in presenting explicit content and who may have access to it.

When I write my scenes, I try really hard to make the positions make sense, to be realistic in safety measures, lubricants, and cleanup. These are just components that some authors will wave away. I put it in there because I recognize that if someone read it and tried it, I don’t want to be partially responsible for someone potentially getting injured.

In Polaris Skies, there is lube involved. The shibari is constructed with precautions. The breath play is presented in a light of displeasure by Cashia who specifies that it is stupid and dangerous because if you don’t know what you are doing, and even if you do, it is dangerous. That scene I worked out for the better part of two years off and on because it was essential for me to show the character being desperate to try to get control of his PTSD, but also making sure that the reader understood that this is not a method for fixing issues.

My firm belief is that if you are going to write explicit content romance, “Do not harm the reader”. If someone reads it and goes ‘let me try that’, you do not want to be the reason they visit the ER that night.

I’m not sure if this rant has made sense. I know not a lot of people even read my explicit scenes, but I hope for those who do, that I do not do them a disservice. Not to the level I felt from this book I tried to read for a review.

The Feather on My Scale: Ch 14

NSFW: spicy erotica

“That was quite the performance, my Heirophant,” I gently praised my husband as I closed the door to my rooms.

Wash had already walked well out of distance to hear me. “Ptolemy? Seth?” he called.

Seth raised an eyebrow from behind his book. Ptolemy’s crutch creaked as he came around the corner to also give the man a concerned look.

“Alright. I’m going to be brave for five minutes. And honest. And I’d really like not to be teased after all of this.”

Seth snorted and set his book down.

“Wash?” I asked, my heart in my throat.

“Is everything alright?” Ptolemy glanced between us. “Do you need more honey?”

“Honey would probably be wise,” Wash admitted. “But that’s not the point.”

“Is a point; I’ll get it ordered.” Seth pointed to the com and made arrangements.

“Alright. Um. Right,” Wash drew in a breath, hyping himself up. “Right. Ptol-Ptolemy.” He cleared his throat.

My blond love leaned down to Wash’s height, his seafoam eyes mesmerizing in the afternoon light. “Dove?”

“You-you. Great Anubis this is really embarrassing to me.” Wash trembled, but I couldn’t quite place what his emotion was. Hanging back out of the way, I wanted to find out if this was me in trouble, or something else. “You, can, um, yes, no. Can you-you-”

Ptolemy chuckled softly, buried his fingers into Wash’s curls and drew him to his lips. Kissing him deeply, he waited for my Hierophant to go pliant beneath him. Releasing him slowly, he smirked at the glassy eyes barely focusing on his face. “Alright, now try again.”

Well, now I was having a particular problem that was going to be painful for a while. “Not sure that’s how to settle nerves, Ptol.”

Ptolemy flicked a glance before doing it again. This time I know there was tongue involved. At the point Wash finally returned the kiss in force, a smirk lit on the corner of my concubine’s lips. “I don’t think you’re nervous anymore.”

Wash swallowed once, fingers going to swelling lips. “Right, I want to fuck His Highness and I think he’ll keep protesting me, so can I sic you and Seth on him for a hot minute while I get him to actually look at me? Because this is driving me nuts and I’m not waiting two years for him to realize I’m okay.”

I would say my jaw fell open, or my heart left my chest. I’m not entirely sure what happened with that admission, but I think tunnel vision hit. “Fu-ehem, High Husband?” my voice cracked. Ptolemy had disappeared somewhere in my panic.

Turning to search for Ptolemy, I found Seth accepting a glass bottle from a servant at the door. He smirked, side-eyeing me. “Wait there for a minute. Ptolemy’s getting his leg on.” Seth handed the bottle over to Wash. “I said slutty thoughts. Did something good happen?”

“Tried slutty. Now I’m just horny and if I don’t address it, Henu’s going to keep thinking it was all a performance, and I’m sorry, but I might believe in celibacy and chastity, but I don’t need to be either now, so I’d like to fix that problem.”

Seth gave Wash a once up and down with pride. “I mean, I could always?” he offered.

“Nebra was headed somewhere when we came back, but I thought, I mean, I figured, if I had you all in on this, then Henu wouldn’t feel like he was pressuring me because you could intervene or something. I think. Yeah, I think, after talking to you, that he wants me to be happy, and probably is still nervous about my position and how that’ll affect all of you?” Wash offered.

Seth pursed his lips before looking at me expectantly.

“I, well, I was trying to give him space. It’s the right thing to do, isn’t it? I didn’t really think about how it was going to impact you all, but it might have been a subconscious thing?”

A hand grabbed my wrist, throwing my heart against my ribs. Ptolemy pushed me to the wall, mouth devouring mine. It took the prickle of adrenaline a second to ease into pliability. My nerves still twitched coolly beneath my skin in trepidation of hurting anyone. Ptolemy lay warm against me. His necklace pressed between us, imprinting cut gemstones across my pecs. Fingers buried into my hair to hold me still as his tongue demanded its due. Rising desire begged.

“I can see why Ptolemy likes kissing people out of their nerves. Kind of fun.” Seth’s tenor washed over my heating skin like lava. Pulling one eyelid open a slit I found him and Wash next to us. Seth’s fingers much more delicately traced across his partner’s jaw. Wash wasn’t quite sure where to place his hands yet with the man in black robes.

Seth pulled away, placing a kitten kiss on Wash’s nose. “Now then. Ptolemy?”

His hands drew down my shoulders, pulling me from the wall. Relenting, he let me come up for air, only to turn me around to face the wall. Seth pushed Wash in between the stucco paintings and me.

“Touch him, Henu,” Ptolemy’s whisper traced heat up from my ankles to my traps.

Shakily, I obeyed the command, my nerve endings hard and sharp in terror and anticipation. “What do you say, Wash?” I skimmed down his chest. Nipples tightened under the stimulation. His cheeks were rose-tinted and eyes glittered. Tongue touching swollen lips about buckled my will. I leaned in to taste the gentle flush. Rose and jasmine lingered from both Seth and Ptolemy on his clove flavour. Hands crept across my stomach and power pulled me toward him with a need that had me sinking against him. It was almost addicting. The thought flashed across my mind that I would despise other Mubharaktan touching me if I didn’t know them. The sensation was too intimate, penetrating in its intensity. It was that deep warmth that promised satisfaction.

“You’re glowing, and feel like ecstasy.” His fingers tumbled across my shoulders. Ptolemy’s hands held tight at my hips.

“But do you want this?” I pressed, kissing the corner of his jaw.

“I told you before you had me summon Ammit.” His breathing was harsh and his skin was hot to the touch. The room floated in eddies and streams, fish swimming about our heads.

“Yeah, well, thought I’d ask again. You hit a weird spot with your Repercussion. Your inhibitions plummet to absolute zero.” I glanced at the crystal glass on the table.

“Are you even going to remember this?” Ptolemy asked, his belt hitting the floor behind me.

“Whether I remember it or not, I’ve wanted to see what my powers could do when I’m like this. And don’t go saying I’m drunk like with cups,” Wash whispered, his hands trailing heat down my chest to the waist of my shendyt.

“Lost to your mind?” Ptolemy nuzzled my shoulder.

“I’m not sure about this.” My voice caught in my throat when Wash tugged at the folds, my skirts falling away.

“You’re the one who has me against a wall here.” Wash’s fingertips danced magic across my tip.

“Yeah, and you’re going to be the one who isn’t going to be in the right mind to say no if I do something you don’t like.” I tensed as his hand settled around me. Ptolemy had thankfully backed off for a moment with my admission of uncertainty.

“Don’t do anything I won’t like then. Like I said, I’m not drunk on wedding wine. Maybe enjoying your power a bit, but I’m lucid and basking,” Wash’s voice dripped across my shoulders with promise. The river around us shot through with pinks and golds. The floor had turned to sand swept back and forth in the waves.

“Easy for you to say, angel. I don’t know what you like and don’t like.” I swallowed.

“You’ll know if I don’t like something.” His eyes flicked to follow the line of the fish swimming through shafts of light around us.

“Won’t you just need more if your mirages persist?” Nebra asked from the couch. I wasn’t entirely sure when she had turned up, but with her, we were all going to have an interesting evening.

“Just have to wear off the initial reaction. Maybe an hour or two.” He reached for the glass. I had expected him to drink the honey straight. His eyes though told me I was sorely mistaken. He tipped the glass, the golden viscosity dripping across my shaft. “Wash?” My voice caught in my throat.

“You told me to keep everything. Does keeping you count?” He sank to the tile at my feet, his robes spilling around him in heaps of white and gold. 

Ptolemy had hold of my hands before I could touch Wash’s cloudy black and white curls. “Nope. I’m watching this, Henu.” He pulled my wrists above my head and back to rest at the base of my neck, exposing my chest.

“Ptol-ah!” Tight heat wrapped around me, threatening to strangle me at the source.

“You’ve been pushing him off, scared you’d send him hiding like a jaroba. I think you’re the one scared because you were a bit more forward with him than the rest of us and questioning if you’d gotten yourself twisted. Watch for a bit.” Ptolemy’s voice inched down my spine, leaving me shivering as Wash ducked to take me to the hilt. My Hierophant, his fingers crawled up my thighs to cling to my hips.

“This isn’t watching,” I gulped.

“It is for me.” Ptolemy purred, his chin tucked into my shoulder, his hard desire pressed to the curve at my lower back.

“Join in then, pest,” I hissed, a shiver running up my legs as Wash’s tongue traced sensitive nerves.

“I think I’ll wait. What says you, Dove?” Ptolemy asked.

Wash smirked, his tongue darting to find more honey. “How long do you think he’ll last?”

 “Not long if you keep this up,” I hissed, relaxing into Ptolemy’s warmth. He gathered my wrists into one hand and skimmed along my waist and up my chest with the other. I turned into his kiss and Wash took me skyward.

Approaching a precipice I let out a desperate, unbidden moan. “Coral shards.”

“Dove, give him a minute to catch his breath.” Ptolemy caressed Wash’s jaw, encouraging him to disengage. “You need full cooldown or just a minute?” He let go of my wrists.

“Didn’t think Wash would want to catch and I was getting close. Hadn’t talked that out when you all pounced me.” My limbers twitched, demanding satisfaction. Prickles and numbness washed me in promise. A few strokes would have me there. “Neither of you have been given your time?”

“I’m amused, and don’t mind swallowing.” Wash brushed at the corner of his mouth with his thumb.

“I might give you half an hour of cooldown before finding my own finish with you if that works?” Ptolemy laid a steady hand on my side to keep me engaged.

“Wash? How do you want your time?”

“Time?”

“You’re just about as frustrated as Ptol is, if what’s against my back is anything like what’s being quite obvious between your legs.” I leaned against the wall over him to steady myself. His lips formed into a nervous thin line as was his habit as he debated etiquette.

“He’s a switch if that makes things easier,” Seth offered from the couch where she and Nebra had nested down to watch us.

“Switch?” he furrowed a brow and ran his tongue along the underside of my shaft.

“Give or take. If either of that sounds of interest.”

“Ah. Um. Honestly, that still – I think I might watch you and Ptolemy and see how that goes for you two. Otherwise, I’m good with just working this thing out with my hands for now.”

“Could join you with that while Ptolemy’s getting to the end of himself?” I offered.

“I’m comfortable with that.”

“Then if you’re alright with what we were doing, it won’t take me much.” I desperately wanted him to stop teasing with just the tip of his tongue.

Leaning back against the couch cushions, Wash curled on my lap and Ptolemy caressing my shoulder, I stared off into the middle distance, sated and exhausted. Numb warmth eased me into a state of stress-free relaxation.

Seth lay out on the couch opposite, Nebra popping grapes in his mouth as she flipped another page of her book. He hadn’t joined in like I thought he would after Wash’s request. Instead, he’d set us up and went and cuddled with Nebra.

Turning a contemplative glance on my one lady, she gave me a gentle smile, though she looked off.

“You alright, Nebs?” I finally disturbed the family.

All glanced at her. She shrugged, her smile telling me she wasn’t.

“You look displeased?” I guessed, fear shooting through my heart.

Nebra giggled at that and waved me off. “Cramp of some kind. Nothing y’all did. I enjoyed the show. Just probably that time of the month coming.”

“Ick. Hot water bottle?” Seth offered to get off of her.

“You’re working great as a hot water bottle, don’t go.” Nebra protested.

“I am your hot water bottle cat, my queen,” Seth curled himself around her. She hugged him back, chortling as he nuzzled her chin. He got his hands around her and she moaned, leaning over him as he rubbed the small of her back.

“I think I like your family,” Wash admitted, watching the two across from him.

“Our family. You’re part of it now.” I tugged gently at his curls, in love with the texture.

Chapel Orahamm (C) 2022-2023. All Rights Reserved.

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The Warden’s Cabin: Ch 1

Darius Wilkinson, newly elected Warden of Margot’s Peak, faces the harsh realities of setting up a new community outpost in a post-apocalyptic world. Prowling cougars do not compare to a restrictive social structure that has left him with responsibilities to a harem in the mountain wilderness.

Genre: Adult, Post-Apocalyptic, Romance, Erotica, Harem, Mature, Smut

The forests had deepend since I was a little boy. Once, great fires had turned the world to ash and sundered the sky in a grey cloak of snow. Now, pushing my way across the game trail, I found myself dizzied by the heights of birch and aspen overtaking a logged foothill. The old equipment had long since become one with ivy and the molehills, rusting in their partial graves.

I shifted the threadbare pack on my shoulders and chewed the bit of venison jerk I held between my teeth. Birds chirped overhead. They dashed in and out of treetops, a twitter of colourful plumage flashing under the dappled sun. One could lose themselves in these woods, thinking the Great Upheaval had never touched this little Eden. Yet, I knew better. Ever present, in a constant state of decay, tiny cabins and sprawling mansions fell into ruin beneath the leafy eves of Margot Peak’s behemoths.

Reasons might abound for why a lone man would ascend a foothill well past the last outpost of what could now count as civilization. Warden of Margot Peak had been mantled upon my shoulder three months past on the Birthing Eve. A time of great care in the dead of winter, when snow would pile up against the door; it was on that night that roles within the community were brought forward and bid upon. I found myself, a joint of mutton barely at my lips, baffled as to the overwhelming vote that bid me a Warden of the eastern face of the mountainside that overlooked the Cairn Valley and the handful of communities that called it home.

“A great honor!” “Surely, we need a man in his early years able to make the climb.” “You’ve been up in the hills since you could toddle.” These were all reassurances thrown my way as I wiped mutton grease from my beard in an effort to appear civil enough to receive any praise, let alone this type of praise.

“We need a new outpost.”

These quiet, solemn words, provided through a deep, aged voice, were the ones to silence the log sided town hall building. Candles flickered in the windows, bidding the last and darkest night to let us awaken in our beds to a new year.

“Mayor Schulz?” My voice cracked unceremoniously, ten years past when it should have stopped.

“Build yourself a cabin, fine enough for a Warden’s family, a fire tower to watch the hills, and a spot of land you can see a new village spread across. These are your tasks, Darius Wilkinson.” The ancient man, liver spotted bald head reflecting under the candles, held out a gnarled hand to offer a golden pendant with a garnet stone inset swinging from a heavy chain.

Gingerly, I took the warm metal and slipped it over my head. A pit dropped in my stomach with the weight of the pendant sitting against my breastbone. There was no denying the roles assigned in Cairn Valley. The community knew what was best to preserve the status quo. I was yet another cog in the wheel to keep the machine going, what little of it there was left.

A deer’s white flag drew me from my morose musings to the game trail beneath my feet. I had yet to find motivation to leave it, or to explore the handfuls of buildings that lingered just at the edge of sight within the undergrowth. I hoped, against rational hope, that if I stayed on the trail, it would lead to water. There was no point in felling and stripping logs if there was no water to quench my thirst.

One would think this a punishment, to be thrown headlong from the Valley and out into the unknown. It was, however, a privilege, if ever there was one. If the cabin held through the first year, and the fire tower held through the second, a call to establish a village would go up, and soon, there would be a spreading of the people once more. Agriculture on the mountain face could see to a new food crop and improved trade. I would oversee it until a time that a Mayor would possibly be needed, and that in and of itself held privileges a common farmer or tradesman would never experience.

Common farmer. That was what I had been, until the Mayor had handed me my role. The Valley, high in the hills above a desert landscape, kept itself cool in the summers by way of meltwater from snow capped peaks. The air lay crisp against my skin, chilling the higher I trudged.

Snow and avalanches would be possible issues living against the mountain’s face, but no more so than the valley would suffer through the melting springs. The ground leveled off beneath my pondering feet, jarring me from my musings. Drawing a few deep breaths, I studied the ascent and hoped to catch a peak of my prior home. Little houses dusted a lush green carpet like so many upended toys upon a rag rug.

“Where will you go, Darius? Where would be safe for a Warden’s Cabin?” I asked myself outloud, if only to break the silence of the mountainside and feel a sense of the familiar. It would not be long that I would live alone, as long as I could build fast enough. Yet, loneliness would be a comforting bedfellow if it meant my cabin be safe and true for a family.

Walking on, the game trail peeled away from an ascent to head north toward the cul-de-sac of the valley’s range. As the sun laid bars of shadow across my path and I thought myself in need of a second or third day of hiking through the bramble, a gurgling splash enticed me to walk on. The trail teetered along a rolling edge, teasing whether it would fall away into the underbrush or continue in tight twists around the rockface. Turning, it revealed a descent to a flattened jut-out not more than a man’s height below. 

Feet firmly on the grass beneath the game trail, I marvelled at the denseness before catching the darkness creeping in at the hedgerow. The air around me thickened, and a mist settled into the hairs on my arms and across my beard. I pulled the pack off and rummaged in it to find my tinderbox and flint in desperation to fight off the onset of night that had come about quicker in the niche than I had anticipated. A click. A spark. A few puffs of breath had a fat-drenched torch dripping but lit. It took several careful turns about the field to discover the source of the gurgling stream. A natural spring tumbled off the edge of the rock on the west side, not more than a handful of steps from the rock that led up to the game trail. With a bit of work, I could create a rock-dammed pond that might water sheep and, with luck, people. I would need to assess that in the morning, though. No good would come of me bumbling about in the woods at night, far from the community, far from help.

Having stared at the stream until the Milky Way stood in sharp relief against the pitch-black canopy, I turned to my task at hand – a tent. I was not yet comfortable with the idea of keeping a fire. There was a possibility of dry grasses and dead trees that would send Margot Peak roaring, a red demon that would spell destruction for Cairn Valley.

The tightly patched cover kept moisture from wicking into my clothes, and the bedroll took the brunt of the prickles out of last season’s grass. An owl had plans for me to forgo sleep, but the yip of a fox sent the creature off down the mountain for a quieter hunting ground. Watching the full moon ascend across the tent wall drifted me to an uneventful sleep.

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Firefly Fish: Ch 1

Marin Goranich wanted to be an artist. The Great Depression saw to a different profession: fish trawling. When a hurricane destroys the cliff face he lives on, Marin encounters a wounded merman. In trying to save the creature’s tail, the would-be artist learns the hard way that he may be a little more fish than human himself.

Genre: adult, fantasy, romance

A corn muffin with honey on top? Good idea. A corn muffin with maple syrup on top? A great idea, though pricey. A corn muffin in my coffee thermos? I should have known better.

I sat at my desk to contemplate one of my less industrious decisions in life and wait for the teacher. Dodging thrown wads of paper while trying to down the chunky brown liquid, not successful. The thermos upended and landed square on Mr Kantor’s freshly mended shirt. Mrs Bernstein was going to flay my hide when she found out what happened. She’d also skin Aharon Bernstein’s hide for having thrown a wad of paper with a stone in it at the girl sitting on the other side of me, thereby causing my now corn muffin chunky coffee to seep down Mr Kantor’s wardrobe.

“I’m sorry, Mr Kantor!” I rushed to pull my handkerchief from my pocket, hoping forgiveness was in order if I helped out. Red built up around his hairline as I swatted off corn muffin crumbs, and he glared at every other person in our one-room school house. If he kept it up, he’d be the same shade of red as the smith’s forge down the street. That wouldn’t be good. Mr Weinberg had already dealt with one heart attack this New Year; he would not be pleased to treat a second one.

“Marin Goranich, what is the meaning of throwing your offending breakfast at me this early in the morning! And the rest of you! What is all this paper all over my floors? Eliza, grab a broom and dustpan. Menachem, I saw you making your group’s bits of ammo. You’ll be writing on the board when school lets out. One hundred times. ‘I am better than to follow my friends into delusional persuasions.’ Aharon, I saw your paper hit Marin. Don’t think I didn’t. Go, run home to your mother, tell her what you did, and come back here with a full set of clothes for me. We will be continuing lessons today!” Mr Kantor sighed heavily in exasperation, snatched my handkerchief and proceeded to try cleaning himself while he got the first graders to the high schoolers all in on a complete early spring cleaning of the schoolhouse.

I did not pity Aharon Bernstein, neither the blistering cold mile walk to his parent’s farmhouse on the other side of the hill, or the blistered butt and the sideways walk he possessed when he returned with a suitcase and luncheon for Mr Kantor. I was sent to fetch firewood for the school stove and restock our rack in the classroom, though, which was cold enough work for me. I still had no coffee.

On my last trip, while others in the room were mopping and dusting, Eliza Ackerman stepped over to my side, her roll as sweeper over and whispered, “I-I wanted to say thank you, Marin, for keeping me from getting coffee all over me. Sorry, you had to deal with Mr Kantor yelling.”

“No worries, Eliza. Honest, I wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on,” I admitted, dropping the split wood in its holder. Shoving a few more sticks into the stove for good measure, I found Eliza still standing near me, chewing on the edge of her lower lip, her hands clasped behind her back as she watched the rest of the room get into the flow of cleaning while Mr Kantor reviewed lessons with the younger children.

“What is it?” I whispered behind the woodstove. It wasn’t that Mr Kantor was deaf to our murmurings, but we could talk more than usual with all the foot traffic.

“Would you care to have dinner with my family tonight? As thanks? I mean, I would need to talk to mama about it first, but I can run back; your house is only a few miles from mine.” She rolled on the balls of her feet, causing the hem of her dress to swing back and forth over her boots.

“Really, Eliza, you don’t need to. It gets dark so soon out here, and I’m left to putting up Gertrude and Omah for my evening chores. If I were late getting back, they’d raise a racket to make the neighbours complain.” I had found blaming our family dairy cows for my inability to attend dinners an easy way to evade Eliza, Puah, and Devorah’s enamoured efforts in introducing me to their families. I knew where that road went, and I wasn’t interested. Not with any of the girls in my town. Not like the matchmakers would let me.

Gideon Horowitz was the only one in my class that seemed to catch my fancy, and that was not a natural predilection to have, as was expressed vehemently in every church pulpit on Sunday that I had been subjected to. That being one in this town. Almost the entire rest of the class belonged to the synagogue, and the boys still had classes at the yeshiva when class let out. My feelings for Gideon was not something I would admit to anyone. 

He occupied much of my scribbled charcoal drawings, though. He had his eyes for Devorah and often talked of her while he sat as a model for me to practice. He had been the one to tell me to take my art and see if I could attend the University four towns over. With what money? I had asked him when he floated this idea one summer afternoon. He never faulted, instead encouraging me to work with Mr Walter’s at the chemist’s to make up posters for the town. Mr Walter’s introduced me to lithography, and I found myself readily putting away funds for my university adventures well before I knew how to apply for admittance.

It wasn’t to say that I found all women unattractive in the same sense as I found Gideon attractive. I had seen the Sears catalogue at Christmas that my mother would spread out on the kitchen table for my older brother and younger sister and brother to admire with my father and me. This was the one time of year we would save much of the farm’s earnings for. Most of my classmates did not understand this infatuation with the holiday, and I did not understand theirs, but we all understood the excitement of the Sears catalogue arriving at the post office.

There were a number of drawings of women in the catalogue that I did not find objectionable in the least. There were more men in them, though, that I found better to my taste and no one said a word if I pointed out the suit jacket or the tools associated with said individual for items that would be nice for father’s wardrobe or useful to our farm equipment.

“Will you two stop flirting with each other and return to your seats? Everyone else is finished!” Mr Kantor reprimanded, driving Eliza and my attention from our argument of who was supposed to come to dinner and who was supposed to see to the family dairy cows.

“Sorry, Mr Kantor,” Eliza and I said in hurried unison as I tugged the latch shut on the wood stove and we both slipped back onto our bench.  Drawing out our drills from within our desks, the high schoolers began recitations. I was left to study my empty coffee cup, and contemplate last year’s catalogue, wondering where I would be this time next year to be reading it. This being my last year of school before applying to the University Gideon had pointed out to me.

Lunch was brief and at our seats as the driving sleet pelted our windows. Mr Kantor’s attention had left him sometime after we had finished with our questions on the subjective nature of Latin. He loved the language. We, as a whole, did not. He kept flicking questioning glances at the window the wind drove most prevalently against, watching the slick gloss of ice creep its way up the sash to see the window.

He had much to continue teaching us that afternoon, as he kept grumblings. I hoped he would push his way through, so that I could avoid a mid-afternoon walk ringed by Eliza, Puah, and Devorah and receiving threatening glares from the rest of the boys in my grade level who all had eyes for the girls. University sounded better by the minute.

“All right, class, I am going to release you early.” Mr Kantor’s pronouncement was buried under a torrid of thrilled yelling and the scratch and clump of feet and lunch baskets and slate tablets all being jostled about. He stared around in frustration while I waited patiently. How no one else had ever noticed that he would continue talking after this announcement after his three years of teaching here was beyond me and him, obviously. “Silence!” he bellowed, drawing everyone into the chill threat of death their parents would bear down upon them if they heard word from Mr Kantor about their misbehavings. “Thank you. As I was saying. You all have your chores at home to do. Due to the snow, I will also have you study the words you can find within your house and document it. Bring it to class in the morning for us to review your findings.”

He had to come up with some kind of pig manure assignment to look like he was trying. We all knew it. So did he. Half of us who had access to paper and grease pencils would help out the other half who might not even have access to a proper washbasin. Some of us would advance our lives and go on to make something of ourselves in academia. Some of us were here until we could sign our names on documents so we could order fertilizer for our fields.

The sleet stung my ears. My empty thermos, tucked in my sack, clanked against the silverware at my back. Instead of heading home, I tracked around the back of the schoolhouse to the fire rick and brought in one more stack of wood while everyone else left. Eliza and Arahan ended up paired off, to her displeasure and his exuberant joy. I dragged in my load and deposited it in the school room, watching carefully for the others to find it too cold to hang around and stalk me.

“Avoiding your fellow schoolmates, Cimet?” Mr Kantor asked from his podium.

“I thought you’d like to have some more firewood for tomorrow morning, and with it being early and all,” I deflected.

“You don’t get on well with the group here, do you?” He persisted in this conversation.

“It’s not that I don’t get one with them, sir. It’s more that their families and mine aren’t quite the same, which makes it difficult. I do wish that they would see that. Especially Eliza, sir. She’s persistent, but I can only imagine what her father would say if he found she was interested in a gentile.” I knocked the remainders of the paper and dust from the bin into a larger sheet of brown butcher paper and crimped it into a fire starter for the morning.

“It’s not that you are uninterested; it’s that you would keep them from that pain?” he mused. I shrugged. Let him think that. It was safer for me that way. To admit to who I was, that was not within me to do.

“I need to get home, probably. That or see if Mr Walter’s has something I can do for him early. He had mentioned a new shipment needing new posters come next month. I could get ahead on that,” I mused, deflected, shut out the conversation that I’d rather not get trapped in. Easing back to the door I pulled on my hat and scarf. Touching the brim, I nodded to Mr Kantor. “Have a good evening, sir. Arahon should be back to walk with you soon. Hopefully.” I pulled the door closed behind me to face the village in the valley of our mountains.

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Life of a Librarian: Ch 1

Thaddeus Jaeger just wants a job. The Librarian’s Guild wants an assassin.

Genre: adult, fantasy, romance

Well. The artwork was beautiful. I’ll give the bored underclassmen that. The fact I had smeared it all over my hands, my papers, and my sleeves before discovering someone had drawn all over the desk made me less forgiving.

“Jaeger?” Dr Hamilton’s cracked voice disturbed my ruminations. I looked up to find him with his hand out, waiting for my portfolio and final paper. I grimaced, placing the now smudged papers and binder in his gnarled palm. He grunted at my offering, turning his hand to find black stripes across his fingertips. The sigh of disappointment did nothing for the pit in my stomach or the heartburn at the back of my throat.

This was the last class I needed. Graduation was planned in a week’s time. My mother had insisted I send a letter announcing my graduation with a Masters’s in Library Studies to every person she could find an address for. Who honestly comes to a Masters’s graduation or a PhD graduation? I had wanted to keep it intimate. Mom, me, maybe Great Uncle Tad. The people who were proud of me for getting the first post-secondary degree in my bloodline, let alone continuing past my English major to go for a Masters. My graduation cap and gown were hung on the worn closet door in my shoebox of a studio apartment. The tassel was on my key chain, so I wouldn’t misplace it.

“Thaddeus Jaeger?” Dr. Hamilton’s voice broke through my anxious musings.

“Yes, sir?” I snapped to the powerpoint slide on the dry-erase board. An agenda sprawled across rows and columns, dates and times.

“You wrote your time down?” His red laser pointer circled my name on the board. Next to it was my placement for the week. I was to show up to the downtown public library on Thursday to fill in as one last internship before graduation. I had a job lined up with an academic library in the rival college in town. The last two years had seen me participate in every internship inside out outside of the city. This one-day internship felt like a lost cause. It was also thirty per cent of our final grade. I had worked too hard at my GPA to not show up. I hastily jotted my time down in my phone and nodded.

“Good. Now…” he started in on presenting information that I had already read about on Sunday. One of my classmates, Sienna, ducked out when her phone vibrated. I mused about work, doodling in the lines of my notebook, sketching out what the underclassman had left.

“It is a treat, students,” Dr. Hamilton pulled me back out of my focus on detailing an eyelash, “to work at the public library, for there, the world becomes vastly different from the meanderings of non-fiction. The basic concept, whether you wish to work by Harvard Yenching, Dewey Decimal, Library of Congress, or what have you, is that you must instinctively understand in the fiction world that not all fiction resides in the same spot.” We watched him, just ever so slightly puzzled. Of course, fiction ended up in the same spot. It was on the other side of nonfiction, always and forever never to interrupt one another’s paths, as long as you didn’t get into any religious debates, or UFO accounts, supernatural, or those few things that tended to be placed as either historic first-hand accounts or subjective “documentary” evidence.

“This week, you will each receive the opportunity to go to this state’s largest public library to help the head librarian. She is currently looking for a new apprentice, and I, as her good friend, would like to make her proud enough to call one of you hers. She is in the midst of cataloguing a new collection she received three years ago and is going to place that collection in the hands of her new apprentice. It would be a great honour, and I hope you seek this privilege,” he eyed each one of us. It felt like Osiris was weighing my heart against the feather of truth here. I had told myself not to get wrapped into a public library. They were small, usually only up to date on failing young adult fiction and the latest glossy issue of the tabloids. They were seriously underfunded and always needing repairs. I had already found myself a spot in the academic library at the university where I was comfortable. These books were faceless, devoid of character and easily allowed me to escape back to my family in the evenings. Out there, in the wilds of fiction, I might never come back.

I scoffed at my melodramatics. I had fallen down that hole once before, where I could lose myself in a three-foot stack of books and finish them all in one day. I swore to myself that I would not waste my life away living in someone else’s fantasy.

I snapped out of my revelry in time to hear Professor Hamilton tell me that I was to see Melissandra Grable on Thursday, the last day of the public library experience, to provide my services for the cataloguing of the new collection. “Yes, sir,” I responded quickly, acting like I had been paying attention. He eyed me warily before nodding. I knew I could never fool him. He knew it too.

_______________________________________

I breathed a tedious sigh. This had been quite the set of years. I flicked the windshield wipers over in a futile hope of getting more of the vapours on the glass to dissipate. I leaned my head against the headrest. Parked in my apartment parking lot, early morning had come on humid and smelling of river water. My hair crunched, reminding me that my moussed curls would evaporate if I abused them.    Closing my eyes, I noted a grinding sound coming from the engine. Today was not a good day to be having engine trouble on top of everything else. I had been able to finish the last of my homework assignments, all that was left was this last day of interning, then dead week, then my presentation of my thesis. I had a hard copy of my second to final draft, and to my utter bitterness, last night, when I had finished typing up all of my edits that I had meticulously handwritten on that draft, my computer crashed. Hardcore. Like it’s never coming back from those death throes. I should have known better than to run that machine for so long.

I watched my downstairs neighbour load up her kid in the back seat of her little hatchback. Her husband had ditched her a month back, and she was doing the best she could. The toddler fought her every step of the way, constantly trying to point back to the apartment they had come from. I glanced to the door to see a little stuffed rabbit doubled over on the stoop. Vanessa wasn’t getting the concept, in a hurry. I opened up my door and went to grab the little toy. I heard the door shut and the little kid crying. “Vanessa!” I yelled to get her attention before she could climb into the driver’s side. I held up the stuffed animal.

“Oh, Deus! Thank you. I didn’t know what Billy was going on about.” She came around her car as I approached.

“No, problem.” I tossed it to her. She caught it and waved, turned back, and climbed into her car.

I returned to my own seat. By that point, the mist on the windows had finally dissipated, and I could see the sun coming up over the baseball field fence off to the edge of the apartments. I knew it. I was going to be late to my internship opportunity. Not the best move when one wants to get hired off the bat. I had dressed in the typical hire-me-now-I’m-desperate uniform of a standard black suit, white button-up, and basic blue tie. A silver bracelet and watch peeked out at the edge of my shirt sleeve. My inner jacket pocket held my mala, if only to act as a good luck charm.

I threw the car into reverse and backed out of my parking space. The radio djs were talking about the middle east wars. I knew that getting on the road any later than 7:34 would mean serious backup at every light to the Public Library that was in downtown. Just my luck. I hit every red light.

I parked the car in the rear of the library, in staff parking. I had received my pass that I hung on the rear-view mirror that let me park there so that I wouldn’t get a ticket. I picked up my briefcase and my portfolio that contained my crisp, newly printed this morning letter of recommendation and resume.

My heels echoed down the back staircase. The place looked empty. The back hall was small and sterile. It was a muted grey-yellow with beige carpet. The place smelled of fresh paint and condensation. Some of the ceiling tiles showed signs of water damage and mould growth.

I frowned. Such was the life of the Public Library, the last entity in the state to get decent funding. Schools weren’t having any better luck. I guess the big-wigs didn’t believe that education and opportunities for academic growth were useful for career development. That showed evidence just by the price of undergraduate and graduate studies programs. My mind raced down bunny trails as I followed signs pointing me to the front of the building.

Finally, I emerged from the back hallway into the stacks. The shelves were enormous, standing at least fifteen feet high, all grey metal with sliding ladders on each one. These held research material, journals, encyclopedias, the general material that was not to leave the library under any circumstance. I continued through the stacks and noticed a shift in temperature and light. I had entered the main rotunda where the stacks turned into eight-foot mahogany shelves. Little brass plaques under the directory cards indicated that the shelves had been a donation by the local carpentry club, funded by a D.W. Simil. Not bad, I told myself as I eyed the decorative dovetail joints. Brass rolling steps were mounted to each shelf. The smell had changed from paint and condensation mould to my favourite smell, print and book dust. It smelled of home and memories. It didn’t help that I had taken over the entire dining room with bookcases back home and turned it into a personal library, so yes, it actually did smell of home.

A large centralized desk sprawled in the middle of the rotunda. It was bright and airy, and distinctly warm. It didn’t help that it was directly under a three-story skylight. Once at the desk, I was able to look around. It was empty and quiet. The sun had burned the room golden, but that was starting to yellow as it moved on. Above the racks and recessed back over the metal stacks were another two floors to the library with more shelves that wrapped about halfway around the rotunda. On the western wall were the grand double door entrance and a massive stained-glass window over it with small niche windows cut out sporadically all the way up that wall.

In the stained glass window were warped so many characters from classic novels that I recognized that it was almost dizzying. There was Dracula and Captain Hook, Alice from Wonderland, The Tin Man and Toto, Curious George, Red Fish and Blue Fish, Pierre, and many many more. It didn’t gleam across the library, but I knew about the time lunch rolled around that the library would be bathed in blues and reds and greens. How had I never been in this library before?

“Thaddeus Jaegar, I presume?” A shrill, cold voice snuck down my spine. I spun around and closed my mouth, knowing that I had been gapping at the window. I found a shrewish woman in a pink sweater cardigan and baby blue button-up shirt with fawn brown pants and impossibly white high heels. Her black hair was cut in a bob and thin green rhinestone glasses hung from a beaded chain. She actually was not bad looking. She appeared to be a retired pageant queen really. She had high cheekbones and full lips with moderately symmetrical eyes and decent make-up.

I was intimidated at once. “You are Melissandra Grable?” I asked, trying to throw out timid in the trash and put assertive in its place, but knew I was failing miserably.

The woman’s grey-green eyes twinkled. “No, I am Ms Krimshaw. I am currently covering for Mrs Englewood while she is away on an errand. We hope she will be back by the end of the month,” the woman answered.

I frowned as I processed her statement. “Yes, ma’am.” I also wasn’t sure if I should pry. The woman had made it sound like a delicate matter, and sometimes, though just trying to be polite, I found out about things that I would have rather not known.

“You are the first to not question me about Mrs Grable. We will see how you do. If you can keep up with me today, I will take your letter of introduction and resume that you have in your portfolio and look it over this evening. Please, follow me,” she motioned for me to come back around the desk to check-in and give me a badge.

“Dr Hamilton mentioned work on cataloguing a shipment of books?” I took the offered badge and pinned it to my breast pocket.

Ms. Krimshaw glanced at me over her glasses, unimpressed. She sighed. She sounded disgusted with me already. Was I really that late? “Yes, yes. Your colleagues asked the same question. Here.” She handed me a lanyard with a card that would let me into the staff room for lunch. I slipped it into my jacket pocket and followed the woman out of the circulation desk.

“The books are in the backrooms. We received a shipment under donation from Simil. He’s the guy who gave us all the shelves you see here.” She flicked a manicured fingernail to the wooden shelves stacked high with books. “He’s always sending us donations, but this? This is a little beyond us.” Ms Krimshaw ducked through a hallway hidden at the north side of the rotunda and unlocked a door. She pushed it open and watched my face when she hit the light switch.

Shock and awe. It was like finding the Ark of the Covenant, and then realizing that there were snakes everywhere. The room was the size of a small aircraft hanger, and it was stacked with wooden crates of books from floor to ceiling in five double rows down the centre of the floor. I could live in this room for the rest of my life sorting books and probably not get half of it done.

“Yeah, Douglas left after he saw this. Felicity actually threw up on my shoes – those were Roger Vivier. I think I honestly could have shot something. Jacob gave it a half go and got through about ten books before heading to lunch and not coming back. Sienna didn’t even show up. She apparently was forewarned about this, whereas it looks like no one cared enough to tell you.” Ms Krimshaw stared me down, her eyes begging me to turn tail and run. I could tell that my face had drained of colour. It was that funny numb feel like when you hadn’t moved in a long time. I took a steadying, deep breath and set my teeth. Make it or break it, I wanted a job, and I was here to get a grade, so I might as well tough it out.

“Where will all of these books go when they are catalogued?” I asked her, taking a tentative step into the room. The temperature dropped. The room was climate controlled and moderately dry. They didn’t want mould to grow or the spines to crack. Someone knew how to store books.

“Simil left us with instructions that if we could get the first two crates catalogued, he would put in for the raising of a fourth and fifth floor to the building to accommodate all of these books and that we could then use this room for all of the children’s picture books he had waiting,” Ms. Krimshaw lead me over to the first crate. On the side, in dripping black letters, was stamped DWSimil. My heart sank. That was going to be quite a tedious job. I tried to regain my composure.

“What will we do with the first two crates of catalogued books?” I ventured a peek into the open box. On top lay new shiny hardback jackets for Rick Riordan and Frank Herbert. I picked up the first book on the pile, The Son of Neptune. I had just finished reading that book to Dante, a kid my neighbor was fostering, the week before. I smiled.

“You seem amused,” Ms Krimshaw looked tired.

“I just read this to Dante. He likes Percy. I’ve read him all of the books and the Kane kids. I like them too. They get to meet gods. Riordan also actually does his research, so his material is pretty believable.” I glided a finger over the embossed letters.

“Hmph. Well, for now, we’re moving what we can into the stacks. Riordan, seeing as you’ve read him anyway, as you know, goes in the young adult, and Herbert goes in Adult Sci-Fi,” she told me. She picked up Chapter House and looked it up and down like a piece of meat.

“I’ve read that one too. I like Dune and Children of Dune the best out of all of them, but Chapter House is pretty good,” I was trying to make conversation, anything.

“Really? what about this?” she asked, handing me Holes. I had never read the book, but it wouldn’t hurt to open it.

“No, I haven’t read it yet. Classic literature was never really my forte.” I went to flip through the page. Ms Krimshaw stopped me. I looked up at her, a little perplexed.

“Might just read that on your lunch break, alright? We need to get to work. Beatrix is already here. She was getting coffee in the lounge but will take over the circulation desk for us for now.” She bustled over to a computer that I hadn’t noticed in the corner right next to the door. She turned it on, and it flicked over to a black screen with green letters. It was all I could do to keep from groaning. The thing was ancient. It had to be from the early 2000s at least, if not maybe 1998, but that would be pushing it.

She typed in a few command lines, and a table popped up. She dug out a stack of indexing cards and the small cataloguing typewriter that was hidden in the computer cabinet. With a flip, the end of the cabinet raised up to make a tiny table that she was able to set the typewriter on. I was not good with typewriters. Somehow my lines always went screwy. “Well, here you are, Miss Oppenheimer. Your lunch break is at 12 sharp. You can find everything you need for putting on the jacket covers, the stickers, and our alarm tags for inside the spine in the little closet over there.” she pointed to the complete opposite end of the room. There was a storage locker tucked behind a pile of books that looked half-completed. This was going to be a freakishly long day.

I cringed. Oppenheimer finally processed. I could have sworn I had officially changed my records to Thaddeus Jaeger. Why the hell did this lady know my deadname? For a second, I thought of walking out.

“Good luck.” Ms Krimshaw waved to me as she headed ducked through the door. The latch click. I panicked for all of two seconds as I dashed to the door. The handle gave way, and the door swung open with ease. My face was washed with warm, humid air. I guess the door wasn’t locked; the jam was just loud. It probably wasn’t a good indication that I was already terrified about this job if I was afraid that my boss had locked me in the room.

I stared at the warehouse full of books around me. It boggled the mind to try and imagine just how many books were probably in all the boxes. I kicked my hard-soled wingtips off and put them neatly under the computer desk so that I wouldn’t lose track of them and dig myself in. I decided to finish the job at the end of the room where the stacks of partially bound books were accumulating dust.

Next Chapter

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The Feather on My Scale: Ch 13

I pulled him onto my lap as we sat on the throne, watching the advisers assemble. He stiffened in my arms in momentary protest at the compromising position. I waited, giving him time to soften to the unorthodox placement as the court watched my movements with either indifference or derision. “Easy, angel. We’re doing no more than performing to the Priests’ expectations. If I touch somewhere you don’t like, tap me, I’ll let up. I’m just a big battery, remember?” I whispered, trying to find a position that would fulfil my temple personnel’s opinions of me, while still providing Wash with some semblance of modesty.

“A performance?” Wash’s breath lay warm against my throat. Hairs rose along my arms.

“That is all, a performance.”

“Will you be angry at me for participating?”

“Why would I?”

“You are Pharoah.”

“And you are High Husband to the Pharaoh. I would not have you demure and scared, but I leave it to you how you will be most comfortable.”

“You sure you want me to call Ammit?” He trailed a series of small kisses up my neck unexpectedly. I swallowed, fighting to keep my eyes from widening at his suddenness. He had twisted against me, drawing fingers across the webbing and knuckles of my hands, moving them to tighten one against his thigh, one around the lean cut of his waist. The peach fuzz on my face rose at the contact as everything within me reached for the points of contact with his skin. An unerring desire, my body wished desperately to mesh with his, the sensation of power flow heady and unyielding.

“I will have the priests grovel at my feet. When we move the hearts of man, we may yet move the minds of government.” I watched the hooded glances thrown my way as the Adom approached, citing rites and rituals.

“My Pharaoh,” Adom called the meeting to attention by initiating the formal grovelling.

“Rise, Overseer to the High Husband,” I reminded him of his change in roles.

He hid his grimace poorly. “We come to you today to wish your marriage one blessed by Geb and Nut, that it will be fruitful to the benefit of all your people.”

I muffled a dismissive snort. He was one to talk. He was the one to put forth the idea of cups. Fruitful? Forcing a smile more full of teeth than pleasantries, I ran a hand up Wash’s creamy skin to cup his ribcage. “I appreciate the sentiment, Adom.”

“This evening, Son of Osiris, reincarnation of Horus, the Nobility of the dome has gathered to seek council, oh keeper of vast wisdoms.” Adom was laying it on thick.

I slid a critical eye along the prostrating men and women.

“The nobility wants to discuss your actions of proposing cups between myself and the keeper of my heka? A ba-less man capable of storing it, bringing forth miracles that have blessed this sanctuary over and over in the several days? They want to lodge a complaint against my very soul in favour of one of the daughters instead. One who couldn’t possibly hold my soul, for who would keep a ba-less child within the nobility? Who would claim one that would not mark them poorly? You want to test him, to make him into nothing more than cheap entertainment to soothe your wounded egos that I would not share cups with a woman who would bear my children and instead with a man, thereby rendering my lineage to the roll of the dice with my concubines. Would the nobles instead prefer their daughters to find their way into my bed with no cups shared?” I picked my words carefully, looking for outrage and protests.

Adom bowed low, putting his head to the floor in a bid to think through his reply. Muttering flitted about the chamber between nobles.

“Silence.” I brokered no dissent. Wash flinched at my tone. I squeezed him in reassurance. The popping of the solar wind on the domes was the only noise to permeate the hall.

“You would displease even the gods in your cunning? You would seek my soul perform for your amusement?” I let my words hang over them in disappointment rather than indignation this time.

“My Pharaoh!” One noble, Viscount Rayphon of the m\Midlands motioned that he be allowed to speak. He started into a beseeching monologue trying to pacify my anger and was joined shortly by others also voicing their wishes that I continue to have a long life and well wishes for Wash and such miserable tidings of flattery. I found myself soothing through texture while I allowed the nobles their time. Wash’s skin and the luck knots took the edge off and the peak of his nipple I kept coming back to, though it made him shift every time I flicked past it in my thoughtless perusal.

“I hope you know I can feel you like this,” Wash’s dove whisper was only for my ears. He shifted, drawing my attention to the point where he sat and we met.

“I apologize. I do find you attractive but mean you no ill will, my Hierophant. Ignore it and I will get it under control.” I rested my hand along his hip and slipped into the depths of my imagination, searching out a treasure deposit of cold showers and images with which to bid my affection to subdued respectability.

“You are honey and milk like this. Leave it out of control and Ammit will rise grander than you might expect, my Lord. Your power is vibrant when your affectation shows. If you would, allow me to make a request upon finishing with this spectacle.” Wash shifted my hands closer to his own pride. I leaned down to kiss his shoulder if only to keep the throb at my core and the gasp in my throat muffled. It also created more chaos in the chamber at my action.

“A request, angel?” I curled my hands into his robes and skirts to feel soft skin and lean muscle flex out of reach.

He lifted a hand from mine, relenting. I breathed a sigh of desperate detachment and relief as he took up his staff. “Have your way with me, my Lord,” he whispered in my ear before slamming the sharp tip of the was-sceptre into the tile. The hall silenced at the echo of defiance.

I expected Ammit to dominate the chamber as a single entity. With that demand from my Hierophant, the hall flooded to the purple depths of the Nile. The power channelling off of me felt like I was well beyond six cups of robust wine and heading for another. Warmth and demand spread through from every point of contact I had with Wash’s bare skin and my own.

Ammit raced through the streamers and deep gorges as sandstone climbed the walls in cliffed outcroppings. Massive creatures of myth and reality dove through the ceiling, crashing through waves, sending bubbles and the sound of crying rage to shake the tile beneath my priests’ feet.

Nobles scattered as the god barrelled through the rows, splitting off the sections, rounding them up into packs of those I recognized as supporters of the temple, those who supported the nobility, and those who I knew were loyal to the royal house. Those last were bequeathed ibis-headed guards with crossed scimitars and crooks. The groups looked at each other in horror as they realized what had happened.

“If you wish to put forth your daughter’s hand for a position as concubine, lodge it with the Overseer of the High Husband. But you will not bring me complaint against who keeps my soul. You who lack divine blood, you have no position to protest the gods’ decisions.” I tested Wash’s neck with a gentle nip. Scrambling and shouting in the chamber told me he’d done something fun with that bit of teasing. I glanced up in time to find Babi and Shesmu with gleaming, toothy grins, circling the problematic groups.

“Do we have an understanding?”

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The Feather on My Scale: Ch 12

I pushed yet another stack of papers away from me. There were complaints all around along with well wishes for the marriage. More than one noble had lodged a motion for trials of the High Husband to verify his suitability. Seeing as he was no daughter of a duke or viscount, there were questions about progeny. My wrist cracked in the silence of my library as I worked out the stiffness in my shoulder. Thoughts circled back to my teen years and a skirmish of the Northern lords and my dad.

Ramses. Broad, grey hair, deep echoing type of voice that could command an army and silence a pack of nobles. I missed him. Missed the salt and pepper beard and the smell of incense on his robes. Missed the firecracker wit that could alleviate a tense council or remind a young boy climbing apple trees about gravity.

I remembered my bedroom the day before we were to head out to put down the Northern Lord, Lofen. The next memory was him holding my hand. The room was a foggy blur, but it was the stress and anguish in his eyes. The pain wasn’t even something I recalled in detail anymore. Had a gouge of meat taken out of my inner right thigh, missing my right ball, and the other had been nicked, making me infertile. They’d left that one, saying even if the tube was cut, it would help keep me balanced. Sure. Whatever. Not something you want to be told at sixteen.

Dad never forgave himself for that. Or when he caught Ptolemy and me behind the barracks. That had more to do with him having signed orders to send out battalions to deal with Lofen’s inheriters taking up the rebel mantle. I thought he had done it as some retribution. I followed Ptolemy, hid myself as a soldier. Left a note and told dad to go look for a different bodyguard. I’d take my revenge on Lofen for ruining my life.

My memories seemed persistent to revisit the horror of holding Ptolemy to my chest, desperately tearing my shendyt into strips to tourniquet his blown leg. Copper coated my tongue, his blood coating my chest as I begged him to not leave me. Medics were slow to come, working their way from the outer blast radius to find us crouched near cratered-out government building. The northern rebel who’d set the incendiary, or at least warm pieces of him, dripped from my hair and arm, where shrapnel had dug to the bone. Ptolemy’s back was flayed out. It wrapped up around his abs. His eyes.

A rap at the door drew me from the headache forming behind my right temple. “Come in.”

Wash, in his gold and white outfit, peaked in through the door. “My Pharoah?”

“My High Husband?” I sagged back against my chair with a charming, if tired grin.

“I come bearing news, maybe nothing more than rumours, but news that should not be taken lightly.”

That sounded concerning. I motioned him to one of the chairs in front of my desk. “What is troubling you, Wash?”

“I have come from the tailor.” He drew in a breath and let out a sigh while he organized his thoughts.

“That does not seem to be your concern, though,” I pressed. The man was coming out of his shell every day, and I was impressed that he chose to be forthcoming with information.

“Sev, the Lord of the South, where my temple had been located. I heard rumours from behind servant doors that he is not pleased with the marriage arrangement.” Wash fidgeted with the tassels handing from his collar.

“I can’t imagine many of the nobility are. They were vying for their own in with the figurehead king.” I tried to reassure him.

“One of the women, she received a letter from her sister in the South stating that he plans to march on the capital in three weeks if he doesn’t find resolution. It sounded like a warning for her to get out before there is chaos slithering toward our doorstep.”

I contemplated this. “Let me talk with Ptolemy and Nebra about this. I do not wish to play our hand early in front of the nobility this afternoon, in case Sev is planning an alternative. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.”

Wash’s shoulders sunk in relief. The man was scared of me. I would need to be careful of him. Slight and quiet of disposition, he was much closer to the feather of truth than I could ever be. I wish he had been brought to The School of Osiris, but he would have already been in his late teens from when I had commissioned the building of the complex.

“As it is, there is the afternoon to think of. You’ve had your collar fixed.” I nodded toward his throat.

“Yes. The tailor. He was quite kind. He took measurements and had me provide him with ideas for my wardrobe. He said to anticipate delivery of a summer set within a fortnight.”

“Very good. Now, we must discuss something outside of rebellious vassels. Or maybe to speak more bluntly of them, I have here a stack of papers here making a great many demands of you.” I held up a hand to his blanching apologies. “Trials, proof, they seek a valid reason for why I would take a husband knowing full well that I’m supposed to produce an heir. This is something I needed to discuss with you.”

“Pharaoh?” Wash sat straighter, though the quivering in his figures did little to hide his nerves.

“I don’t think trials will be a problem here. We can run them off with your fire. It’s not that. It is,” I cleared my throat, dashing my gaze to the stained-glass windows hiding the world from me. “It’s that, I can’t have children.”

“You and I are male. That would be impossible.” Wash blinked, cheeks going a soft shade of strawberry.

“Not, well, no that would be impossible yes, but I mean, I can’t have kids.”

“But you are the pharaoh. It’s something you’re supposed to do.”

“Three ways of speaking past each other. I have a disfigurement that makes it impossible for me to leave behind my seed.”

The stunned look was what I had been anticipating. Wash’s brows furrowed as he tried to figure out what the appropriate reply was to that type of news.

“But what about Nebra? She’s your concubine. Seth or Ptolemy-?”

“Seth isn’t going to be able to help with family planning either. Ptolemy is probably our best bet unless you and her hit it off and I’m going to not be the one to force that issue, but it shouldn’t be something foisted on Nebra just to satiate politics. As it is, she’s not noble. The nobility want their fingers in my dynasty. What I’m getting at, Wash, is that they are going to come after you. I will be there, but I wanted to make sure you had time to prepare yourself for when conflicts do meet you at your door.”

Wash sat quietly for a time. I let him internalize while I plowed through yet another handful of letters making needless demands.

“Is that why you didn’t want to consummate our marriage?”

I looked up at the morose tone. “Because of the nobility? No. Screw them. I could care less about their opinion on my marital bed.”

“I mean, the um, the other issue?” He was still looking for the correct phrasing.

“Oh. You mean the injury?”

Biting his lip, he nodded, unable to look at me.

“No. I just wanted to make sure you were lucid and had some time to figure out who we are to each other. Oh, you’re wondering about performance?” I guessed.

The sharp intake of breath told me I was correct. I shook my head. “That’s not a problem. I do get sore in the leg if I have to be on my knees for too long, of if I end up standing for ceremonies, but no, that part of my dignity is still intact.”

Wash swallowed.

“I’m sorry. I’ve made you uncomfortable. I’ve been trying to figure out how to have this conversation, and I didn’t exactly want it to be something you stumbled into. Scar’s not exactly a pretty sight.”

Wash shook his head, still mute and processing.

“It’s not something you need to worry about, though. Alright? There are plans in place, or at least, I could do with your help in determining a plan for your fire in the ceremony this evening.”

“There isn’t a plan in place for your children, at least what’s to be done to pacify the nobles. There isn’t precident for a sharing of a High Husband and High Wife, but would it be of benefit for you to take someone on in that context from the nobles to ease the situation?”

“If only it would be that easy. I can see no way that she would look kindly on finding out my lack of ability, and I would rather they not learn of it.”

“But I’ve seen your scar. What there is of it. You’re bathed daily in front of the congregation. It’s not like we haven’t seen you, my Lord.”

It was my turn to turn red. “And you weren’t put off?”

“I didn’t really even notice it. Then again, I was in charge of your hands and wasn’t exactly trying to get a view of you. Wouldn’t have been my place. The other wab didn’t want me close to your, ehem,” he coughed.

“Understandable. I’ve always felt like it was really obvious. And I forget that you work closely within the rules.”

“I mean, there are sheets in place to keep your modesty from the congregation. It’s not like everyone would get an eyeful from how far down they are. And they kneel, those that can. You would be too far away, even without the sheets, for anyone to ever see. Those of the Temple. Do they not know? They see to the Drawing of the Bolt. Surely Adom knows?”

“It might be a blessing that those raised in the temple often ignore the sciences. As far as I’ve been able to discover, the doctor who patched me up never left notes behind on the incident. It wouldn’t have looked good for a son of a Pharaoh to have failed from a battle like that. I don’t think any of them know.”

“Is this something you’ve talked to Nebra about?” Wash asked.

“Oh, yeah, we’ve talked before. She knows. We’ve been together almost a decade now. It would be odd if she didn’t suspect by now.”

“No, I mean the bit about needing an heir.”

“We’ve talked about it before. So, she’s aware that at some point I would need to somehow come up with one. I just never wanted her to feel obligated. Not everyone wants to do that.”

“What is there to be done then?”

“This evening, we probably all need to get together and find out what would be the best direction to go, if it means finding someone willing to conceive for us, or if Nebra is interested. Ptolemy’s close enough to my bone structure, and his colouring looks like dad, Ramses, for a child to pass as mine.”

“Pharaoh Ramses was blond?” Wash’s interest peaked.

“No, well, not that I remember. He was salt and pepper for what I remember of him. Then again, that’s just my memories. Now, it was more his complexion. Really fair. Took a deep tan when he was out in the sun long enough.

“Pharaoh. Um – Henu?” Wash asked.

“Yes?”

“Was Pharaoh Ramses your actual father?”

Old memories bubbled up at the question, of a hooded, bearded figure reaching down. Massive skeletal hands let go of me. I was pulled out of the shadows and buried into a giant warmth and light. Horse sweat and oud.

“No. Ramses wasn’t my father.”

“Then why would it be a problem if you can’t have children? Adoption is already-“

“The paperwork says my mother was one of Ramses concubines, but I know I didn’t come from the palace. I remember the alleyways near the Nile. You can tell just by looking at me that I don’t come from the noble households.”

“No-”

“Look at me, Wash. Look closely. I won’t get mad at you staring. Tell me who you think I look like,” I demanded. I begged that he would recognize it. I wanted to find some validity. Too many people were too used to my presence.

“I don’t want to say. It will sound rude.”

“A mariner. You think I look like mariner blood.”

Colour dropped out of his face. “I didn’t say that.”

“It doesn’t trouble me. And I think I am. I don’t have many memories before the palace, but I think my mother or father was mariner. Ramses picked me up off the street and made me his son. I’ve heard nobility and priests say I was exotic, that my mother must have been from this or that faction of their lands, but no one has ever mentioned the idea that I would be of mariner decent.”

“My Lord!” Wash hissed in horror.

“The caste system is broken. And I won’t discriminate against those who maintain the bay dome panels because of the risks it poses. You asked that I not discriminate against the Muberakhten. I won’t. And if I can help it, I am determined to change the way the people view those who keep the tides from killing all of us.”

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The Feather on My Scale: Ch 11

“Think slutty thoughts. What does that even mean?” Wash muttered to himself as he turned around in yet another hallway, having lost himself deep in the back end of the temple complex. He had hoped to find the elusive tailor who was supposed to insert silk into his collar before the ceremony. However, this hallways gave him no indication as to if he was any closer to the workers’ wing or not.

“Did that half souled creature really become the-?”

“Shhh, not so loud. Yes. He did.”

A pair of whispering voices from behind a door caught Wash’s attention. Unease prickled along the back of his neck at the tone.

“I heard he’s been given Horus’s blessing. He even grew wings.” A third voice, almost that of a child, chimed in.

“Impossible!” The first one spat.

“No, I was there. It’s true. His High Husband grew a pair of emerald green wings. He’s been blessed with the god’s power.”

“Sev’s not going to like this.”

“No, I can’t imagine he will.”

Wash’s heart clenched in his chest. The Lord of the South where he had come from was known to be a brutal man.

“What will we do? His Lord was going to marry his daughter into the dynasty.”

“To the King? He thought he’d get that slip of flesh anywhere near the royal bedchamber? The Pharoah has a type of she is not it.”

“Who else could it be?”

“Sev himself could try.”

A snort echoed through the door. Wash realized he had become petrified to the spot, eavesdropping taking all of his attention. He needed to leave, but he couldn’t.

“You know he would never go for that. He wants to be daddy-in-law and pull the strings. He’s tired of being ruled.”

“Not for long. I have word that he’s planning to oust he Pharoah if he can’t marry into the family, and with the wab-husband in place, that option’s off the table.”

“What about concubine? His Highness has several. Sev could just – “

“He’d never go for it. He wants all the power. No. I heard from my sister in Thebesian, if he can’t get his brat married into the royal house, he’s going to march on the capital. Three weeks. In three weeks. You’re shaking your head, no look, in her letter –“

“Leave the city? Is she serious?”

The door suddenly opened to reveal a small woman in a servant’s uniform. Her face paled. “Your High Husband!” Her voice squeaked shrilly.

Wash regained his composure. “Would you point me in the direction of the tailor? I was told he was back here, but I get the sense that I’m in the wrong wing.”

The woman looked him up and down, struggling to keep from gaping at his pistachio green wings. “Ye-yes, Your High Husband, the tailor. He is down this hall. Let me walk you there.”

Wash offered her a tepid smile and followed the woman.

“Did, did you?” The woman kept peaked at him meekly from under her lashes.

“Is there something you need, servant?” Wash reminded the woman of her place, if only to sooth his own bruised ego.

“Ah, no, your High Husband. Here is the tailor.” She opened the door and stepped back to allow him entrance. Wash stepped through the door and waited for her to close it before continuing further into the tidy chamber.

A whithered man sat behind a mound of silks and brocades, carefully stitching under a brilliant magnifying light. “I told you, Kara – oh, I’m sorry!” The man jumped up and bowed at the sight of Wash.

“I came for my collar. The High Lecturn told me it should be down here.”

“You could have sent a servant, Your High Husband!” The tailor admonished before looking abashed.

“It does me a disservice, as a foreigner to the capital and temple, to rely too heavily on the staff when I might need to fend for myself on occasion. I thought it would be good to come to you to commission my own clothing as it is. Simpler for you to take measurements from the source, rather than depend on third-hand knowledge. Wouldn’t you agree?” Wash calculated a beguiling smile and watched the tension ease from the tailor.

“Yes, of course, Your High Husband. You were blessed with such wisdom, and I do look forward to helping. My, what beautiful wings!” The man noticed the draped moth-like appendages. “I have the perfect colours to go with the beautiful red stripe in them.”

Wash eased at the man’s chatter, finding him companionable. Soon he was measured and a log was made for colors, textures, and cuts that would appease him. Fitted back with the silk-lined collar, Wash left the tailor, filled with a warmth from the tailor, and dread from the servants. “I need to talk to Henu.”

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The Feather on My Scale: Ch 10

A book landing on the table in front of him startled Wash out of his brooding daydream. “You’re staring off into the Pesedjet’s realm.” Seth pulled his hair around and settled onto the floor chair across from the new High Husband.

Wash cleared his throat, “I-I um…good day to you, Big Brother Seth.”

Seth glowered at him. “Yeah, let’s not go with that formality.”

Wash baulked, fumbling for the book. “But it’s polite?”

“It sounds awkward when I fully intend on persuing you.” Seth cracked open his own book.

“Per-?”

Seth stared at him. “I didn’t stutter.”

“You say that. Henu says it. Ptolemy does to, but Henu won’t even-“ Wash clasped a hand to his mouth, his cheeks flushing hot.

“Is he being lude again? He told me he would work on that.”

“No, I mean, well, kind of, but no.” Wash waved away Seth’s question. The man in black robes stared at him, waiting on the High Husand to elaborate.

“I, you’re a consort. Did he, I mean, is it common…” Wash fumbled with the book before sliding it across the table. “I don’t know if this is something we’re supposed to discuss.”

Seth rose from the table in anger. ‘He didn’t force himself upon you, did he?”

“No, nothing of the sort. If anything, he’s treating me like thin porcelain, and I just…” Wash let the statement hang in frustration.

Seth settled into his seat. “You’re going to need to be more clear.”

“He, we, that is, we played Go on our wedding night and he said something this morning, but he hasn’t, well.” Wash cast a pleading glance at Seth. The consort raised an eyebrow. “Hasn’t, um, done anything with me. Did I put him off? What happened? He seemed all kinds of keen when he first saw me at Last Rights, but now?”

“Oh!” Seth’s voice cracked, his eyes going round at the confession.

“Oh? Oh, bad? Oh, he’s doing something because I did something? I need help here. I can be overly blunt sometimes and put my foot in my mouth. What did I break and how do I fix it?” Wash begged.

“No, no, Wash. No. You didn’t do anything wrong. This is just what Henu does.”

“He does?” Confusion coated his voice.

“At least he did with Nebra and me. We came to the Pharoah a few years after Ptolemy, but those two were friends since their adolescence, so I think they’re different. No. Henu saved Nebra and me from Last Rights like he did you. When he did, he made us consorts, but absolutely refused to touch us for months. I was almost two years.” Seth stacked his books and slid them to the side.

“Two years? I was prepared-“

“He likes deep friendships before just having sex with someone. It’s just how he works. He wants the feelings to be mutually shared. Doesn’t much like the idea of coercing and doesn’t want to be blamed for something like that.”

“But his kiss!” Wash protested.

“He likes deep bonds, doesn’t mean he isn’t prone to get into people’s bubbles if he’s aesthetically attracted to them.” Seth rolled his shoulders in amusement.

“He won’t consummate my marriage bed because of friendship, but he’ll kiss me like he will because he thinks I look neat?” Wash asked, taken aback.

“Not neat. He’s fascinated with your eyes and has written at least three haiku that he has admitted to about them.” Seth let on.

“That’s…”

“Embarrassing?” Seth offered.

“I don’t know if it’s embarrassing or endearing when I’m kind of on a let down here.” Wash leaned back in his chair to stare at the post and beam ceiling.

“Have you really never done it with anyone?” Seth twisted a lock of his black hair.

Wash frowned at the question. “No.” He sat up straight to study Seth.

“Are you into men the way Henu is into Ptolemy?”

The High Husband’s cheeks pinked at the question. “Yes? Maybe? I’m not so much the deep ties type of person, but I find people attractive in general. Then again, as a wab, I was celibate. Am celibate at the moment…”

“Not so much celibate as waiting on your partner. It is relieving to know you aren’t against the relationship. I don’t think Henu would ever forgive himself if you weren’t into that kind of relationship and he pushed you into one. Poor guy is just too wrapped up in feeling like he must put kid gloves on with everyone.”

“But he’s the Pharoah. He commands armies. He is blessed by the gods. He can marry whoever he wants, have whoever he wants, do whatever he wants.”

“And what he told me once, is that he never wants to abuse that power.”

“I’m – the rules don’t make any sense.” Wash pushed at his face with the heels of his hands.

“What rules?”

“The ones for interacting with royalty, nobility, the temple. Everything I’ve been taught is to give the Pharoah anything and everything he wants. He his Horus descended among us. To treat him as anything less is to spit on the son of Osiris, a child of Ra.”

“You are giving him what he wants. Time. He wants time with you. Time to develop legitimate feelings, separate from the rules. Separate from all the status quos. You may see him as a god among men, he sees himself as little more than a man surrounded by ceremony. A figurehead to be manipulated.”

Wash muttered under his breath. “And yet I’m still horny.”

Seth snickered. Wash covered his eyes, realizing the man had heard him. “I tell you what. I don’t have any time scheduled to speak with Henu, so I can’t step in. However, I do know that nobility is supposed to be gathering in the temple for blessings from you and Henu this evening. You aren’t wasted on wedding wine, quite within your senses. Teasing him does wonders. It took me too long to figure out and part of why we didn’t do anything for a while. If you’re insistent on pulling off his kid gloves, you’re going to have to take the lead. I swear that man is the epitome of a sub, if not for the random possessive streak that likes to pop out.”

“Sub?” Wash raised an eyebrow.

“I’ll explain later. For now,” Seth rose and offered Wash a hand up. “Think slutty thoughts, you chaste angel.”

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