In Brist's Time - Chapter 16

A while ago, I updated my word program and it had a bug that made it NOT save my formatting when I copy and pasted it to anything, such as my blog. I waited patiently for them to fix the bug, and apparently they did, only I as a non computer programmer have no idea how to apply the patch, lol! I'm sure it's as simple as copy and paste it into the program somewhere, BUT I think it's probably way easier to simply uninstall the update and reinstall the old program, so guess what I did tonight? Lol! Hopefully, this will solve my problem :-) (Yes! We have a working program again!!!)

Chapter 16

“WHAT?”

“Nicholas! Let him go,” Brist commanded with a deadly softness. She squeezed his wrist to convey her point. Slowly, Nicholas forced his fingers to release the slave’s arms.

“You are lying,” he accused.

“You know me, I’m no liar,” the slave stated, infinitely relieved to have Brist there to defend him. “The sailor also said that they know which pirate did it, for while they were occupied trying to save survivors, the “Pirate’s Rose” nearly caught them too.”

Nicholas’ features mirrored the black rage that was rolling over him, causing him to ball both of his hands into fists.

Brist thanked the slave for telling them the news, then grabbed Nicholas’ arm, and forcefully dragged him out of the room, and into the master suite.

“You have every right to be angry,” she stated. “However, you aren’t going to be able to do anything productive until you get it out of your system. So, go ahead, rage at me.”

Nicholas turned away from her, and Brist handed him an oil lamp. Nicholas stood still as a statue, and simply looked at the lamp for several long moments, then without warning, he lost his battle to control himself, and hurled the lamp at the wall with as much force as he could.

“Good.” Brist handed him another fragile item, this time it was a pitcher, she held onto its matching basin so that it could be sacrificed next. They continued in this vein for some time until they ran out of things for him to throw, and Brist could tell his rage had not yet burned itself out, so she braced herself, and slapped him full across the face. Not hard, but enough to direct his attention at her.

He lashed out in retaliation, and soon Brist was acting like a coach sparring with an overly enthusiastic, and not very skilled student. She remained on the defensive side for most of the bout, easily deflecting even his most viscous blows easily, and only going on the offensive when it looked like he would try to end the match before he had expunged his rage.

Finally, Brist could tell his rage was spent, and she backed off in order to allow him to cool down. Nicholas collapsed onto his bed, refusing to show weakness by shedding tears. Brist sat down beside him, and began to rub his back. She had no compunction about shedding tears for the members of her family who had been murdered by pirates.

Her tears fell silently for some time, and Nicholas became aware of them only when he felt moisture land on his face. For a moment he thought that they were his own tears, and that he had failed to keep them back, but then he realized that the hands on his back, the hands that were trying very hard to offer him comfort, were trembling slightly, and that her breathing was heavy. He sat up, and gathered her in his arms, and for some reason, now that he held her, and tried to comfort her, his own tears refused to remain unshed.

*******

“Brist!”

“Nicholas!”

“Come out!”

“It’s past noon!”

“Honestly!”

“The two of you,”

“Do nothing but mate these days!”

The twins shouted, each completing the other’s sentence as they pounded on the door.

“The door’s not locked!” Nicholas called, indicating that they should enter.

The twins found their older brother locked in an embrace with their relative from the distant future. “Oh really!” They gasped. “If you aren’t being decent, you shouldn’t invite us in!”

Brist let out a new round of muffled cries at their obliviousness. Her head was buried in Nicholas’ shoulder, and Nicholas laid his head against hers. The twins noticed that his eyes were red and puffy, and that his face was shiny from still wet tears.

“What happened?”

“What’s wrong?”

“The Regina has…gone down.” Nicholas sniffled, fresh tears welling in his eyes. Each adult took a very distraught twin into their arms, and let them cry until they had no more tears left to shed, for the day anyway.

The next few weeks were sad. Nicholas, who benefited from Brist’s sweet charms, recovered fairly quickly, and resumed life while patiently waiting for the dreaded days when his brothers returned. The twins recovered shortly thereafter. They knew their parents wouldn’t want them to grieve forever, and besides, Brist was teaching them new things to occupy their minds.

On December 11^th, Brist discovered that she was pregnant, but decided to wait for a special moment to tell Nicholas. On the 13^th, Thomas arrived.

“Can’t stay more than two or three days, Nicky,” he blurted the moment he say his brother.

"I’ve given orders in port to postpone all departures indefinitely,” Nicholas replied.

“No… no! I am an adult now, and you can’t -”

“Listen, Thomas… Mum and dad were… killed by pirates before they got two days out of port. As soon as all of us are here, we’ll hold a memorial in their honor. Thomas was too stunned to reply for several long moments, and then he experienced all the stages of grief that his siblings had.

The same scene replayed itself over and over during the next two weeks as Richard, Jonathan, and Gregory returned. By about a week before Lucas was due to return, Morgan and Curtis had arrived.

On January 10^th, exactly 3 months from the day he’d left, Lucas returned with his bride and Sarah in tow. The whole family was waiting for them by the time Lucas actually reached the stables, and they stared at the tall, plain, brunette. Brist was the first to break the silence.

“You must be the wonderful new Mrs. Evans, welcome!”

Lucas’ brothers all frowned in disbelief.

The woman smiled warmly, “Yes, I’m Angeline, and you must be Brist. I’ve heard so much about you.” Just then, Sarah jumped from Angeline’s arms to Brist’s.

“Mummy Brist! You’re so beautiful! Guess what… I can see again. The doctor we visited said that it was just a matter of getting over my shock and fear,” Sarah babbled. “I had so much fun, I was the bouquet holder in Lucas and Angeline’s wedding, and-” She was cut off by a loud chorus of, “Wedding?!”

After that, Brist couldn’t make head or tails of the ruckus that happened when everyone tried to talk all at once. She smiled at Angeline, and helped the lady off her horse. Placing an arm around her, she bade, “Welcome to the family! Don’t worry, they’re not always this bad, just when they’re arguing.”

“Well! I didn’t think Lucas had an argumentative bone in his body, and just look at him shouting the loudest,” the new wife chuckled.

In the midst of the argument, where no one could really hear anyone else, they all managed to hear Angeline’s soft question. “Where’re David and Regina? I can’t wait to meet them.” Everyone fell silent, even Lucas, once he realized that he was the only one still shouting.

“Did I say something wrong?” Angeline asked.

“I have bad news,” Nicholas announced. “They’re dead.”

Brist would never know exactly why, but even after most everyone had worked through their grief, one by one, they all started to cry, even herself, Sarah, and Angeline. Of them all, only Nicholas did not cry. He stood strong as the new head of the family, bowing his head in honor. This made Lucas cry all the harder as he wondered how Nicholas had managed to cope with the grief.

*******

Three days later, the entire family stood aboard the David - Regina’s ship - which had sailed to the site of the pirate attack, to the best of their knowledge. The David stood proudly in the middle of the entire Evans fleet of 15 ships. Everyone who knew David and Regina personally had misty eyes, except those who’d had time to work through their grief.

“I only knew David and Regina a few short days, but I loved them as my own parents. It was a grave day when the pirates stole such wonderful people from their loved ones. I just know that they are watching over us, touched by how many people cared about them. I truly believe that they would not want us to be sad for long, and would take an opportunity to remind us that due to a last minute decision, their beloved daughters did not die with them.” Brist took a moment to kiss a white rose she carried, and then tossed it overboard. “Good bye, you will be missed.”

“Very eloquent,” Nicholas murmured, and gave her a small but grateful smile. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to maintain his composure if he said anything else, so he simply kissed his own white rose, and threw it overboard.

The twins followed suit, saying, “We shall always remember the good times and be grateful. Thank you for all you have done for us. We love you.”

The rest of the family added their roses to the ocean, including Sarah and Angeline. Angeline added, “I feel as if I am losing my own parents, and even though I have never met you, I’ll miss you. Rest in peace.” 

Go To Next Chapter 

Wild Grape Jelly

Earlier this week as we were getting our bikes unchained from the deck on our porch, I noticed that we have something that looks like blueberries growing on a vine that covers our porch. This has never happened before that we know of. So, I immediately called up our landlady and asked: "What berries grow on that vine?" The answer was: "I don't know, there was never any berries on it when we lived there."

Okay... that's not helpful, so I had to determine what they were, and more importantly, were they edible or poisonous? I went online to find several resources to answer this very question, and discovered that due to the jagged edges on the leaves, the fact that the vine has tendrils, and that the berry itself has more than one seed (the poisonous lookalike has smooth leaves, no tendrils, and only one moon-shaped seed - it's called a moonseed, fyi), that this is definitely a wild grape wine. Yea!

So..... now what do I do with it? As an amateur wine maker, I was tempted to make wine with it, but I really didn't think I would find enough berries to make wine with, so I said: "I'll just have to make Jelly with it," and the response from my boys was an overwhelming: "YES!!!!!"

Okay, so I guess I'm making jelly, lol!

I then went online to figure out how in the world to do that - since I had never made jelly before. When buying it in the store, I tend to look for several things before I buy a jelly. First, I want it to be organic, and second, I want it to have as little sugar in it as possible. I love the few varieties that have no added sugar!

Alas, that was not to be, at least not for this batch of jelly. The wild grapes themselves - or at least these ones - are VERY tart and sour. There's no way we could have simply eaten them by themselves. And had I tried to make them into a sugar free jelly, no one would have wanted to eat it, lol!

So I found a really simple recipe online, and - being a simple is usually best kind of girl - I decided that this was the recipe for me :-) Concord Grape Jam

SOOOO, I grabbed a large bowl and headed outside with my helpers to pick any grapes that we could find on the vine. To give you an example of why the grapes were hard to find - or even notice in the first place - here's a picture of the wild grape vine growing on our porch:

As you can see, if you look REALLY closely at the middle upper right of the picture, there is one small cluster of berries. The leaves are huge and do a really good job of hiding the grapes from view. It's no wonder that we've never noticed them before, however, I really don't think they grew before. Shrugs.

Anyway, having gone out to pick them, I only found a few handfuls growing on the vine that covers the porch. Not really enough for making into anything... And then we looked around the corner. The vine has completely grown over either a small tree or a bush that is a foot or so away from our porch. If you get inside the veil of leaves, you'd find a virtual gold mine of grapes! Sadly, I didn't take a picture of that, mostly because I didn't want to get inside it, lol. I sent my eager-to-please boys in there to pick the grapes for me.

When the bowl I was holding got pretty darn full of grapes, I realized that I actually did have enough to make wine with, however, I was committed to making Jelly, lol!

And honestly, we probably didn't even pick half the grapes found in that little secret hiding spot of theirs. It just goes to show you that most people don't really look at the things around them, lol!

So then I had the dubious pleasure of picking all those tiny grapes off the pieces of vine we plucked. As I did so, I realized that I might be better suited to the role of a farm wife than I thought. If hubby did all the insanely early in the morning chores (since he is an early bird no matter how late he goes to bed), and if I had the boys or perhaps a helper do all the cleaning, I myself would have no problem doing all the evening chores and canning and just basically processing the harvest of our farm... if we had one, sigh...

Anyway, picking each individual berry off the stem gave me time for my mind to wander, and when my mind wanders, I get inspired to write, so really, I AM suited to this kind of work :-)

Now you can see why I thought they were blueberries, lol! It occurs to me that in these pics, you can't really see how huge the bowl and colander really are, so it looks like I have maybe a couple of handfuls here. I assure you that it's closer to six cups!!!

And here's how I know: This shows only half of the berries, and according to my blender, it's 3 cups. I simply could not fit all of the berries in my 5 cup blender, so I divided it into two roughly equal portions :-) Also, if you read the link to the original recipe I posted, you'll understand that I am lightly blending the grapes simply to remove the seeds and peels.

 I forgot to take a picture of the smaller colander I used to strain the juice from the berries. I squeezed them by hand to extract the most juice from them, tossing the squeezed portion back into the blender. My hand got so purple that I was reminded of the grape stomping episode of I Love Lucy, lol! However, it washed right off, so I didn't manage to get a picture of that either, :-(

To the squeezed stuff that got tossed back in blender, I added a cup or so of water and lightly blended it one more time to get the most juice from it. Then I hand squeezed it all over again, lol! However, after that, I tossed it in the garbage. I was tempted to rinse ALL of the juice out of it, but I knew that the more water I added to it now, the more water I would have to boil out of it later, so I stopped here :-)

I didn't measure how much juice this is, but I'd guess about 3 cups. As I previously stated, these grapes were very tart and sour. Simply licking a bit of the juice off my finger was enough to pucker my mouth the same way as if I had just sucked on a slice of fresh lemon. It also caused my mouth and hand - that I had squeezed the berries with - to tingle in a way that kind of itched. A quick test on my hubby and kids ensured that I was the only one that experienced this, so I think maybe I might be mildly allergic to these grapes.

In any case, they seriously needed sugar, but not TOO much sugar. So - after sending hubby to the store to pick some organic sugar up because we rarely use sugar in our house - I started with a cup, passed out taste tests, and then added another 1/2 a cup. At that point, it was sweet but still tart. My hubby compared it favorably to real grape juice. Yea!

I also set this on low to medium-low heat until it started to boil gently, then I adjusted the heat until I was fairly sure that it would simmer without burning. Even so, I think it did scorch ever so slightly towards the end.  It still tasted REALLY good :-)

I let it simmer uncovered for over an hour - stirring every few minutes - because the success of this recipe depends on reducing the original amount of liquid until you get a good thick syrup that will cool into a jelly consistency. The original recipe I followed warned me that it was REALLY easy to overdo the thickness, so when it started looking nice and viscous (meaning that the syrup clung to the spoon like a jealous lover), I started taking a half a spoonful and setting it aside to cool. On my second attempt, it "jelled." So I promptly turned the heat off and let it cool a little.

Here, my older assistant models the lightly jelled sample on the spoon, lol!

 Of course, the first pic I forgot the flash, so I took another.

And then the second pic, he isn't looking, lol! Oh well, you can clearly see the jelly on the spoon :-)

Here's a pic of how it jelled in the pan as the leftover bit cooled :-)

 So, I poured the jelly into a pint-sized jar, and it almost over-filled it. However, I scraped the foam off the top, and was left with exactly a pint - according to the line on the jar, lol!

 And lastly, here's a pic of the very end product, after I'd set it in the fridge to cool overnight :-D

Wait just a minute!!! Y'all want a pic of how it looks on bread, right? Hang on, I'll go get one :-)

One more second, I'm uploading and resizing the pic...

Aha! And here it is :-D And FYI, yes, it tastes really good, lol!

Lastly, if you make your own, please comment back to let me know how it went :-)
Thank you, and have a happy day!

Doodles in Crochet

A good 6 months or so ago, I came across this picture of an AWESOME dress:

Using JUST this pic, I was able to pretty much recreate the pattern (which is rare for me since most patterns are no where NEAR this clear and easy to see and recreate). As I have been crocheting this, I've apparently somehow NOT taken out as many stitches as I've added (while creating the chevrons, stitches are added and subtracted so that the base amount of stitches doesn't really change), therefore MY dress has belled out rather than "hug" my body as I wanted it too. However, it still looks pretty good on me.

Here's a progress pic that shows that I am just NOW getting to the point where I will add a few blocks to make the skirt - after many months of working on this on and off, whew! lol.

As you can plainly see, the original dress incorporates shaping to make it hug the curves of a much smaller body, so it didn't need as many pattern row repeats as mine does. Also, I obviously didn't have the original yarn, and because the white/brown/blue is variegated (which means changes color as you use the yarn, usually on a broad spectrum so that it "self stripes"), it's actually somewhat hard to see just how many pattern repeats there are in the original, but I was able to narrow a single pattern repeat down to 8 rows. In my version, you can see that a little better. There's 2 rows of the cream color, 2 rows of the teal color, and 4 rows of the blue.

Here's a slightly different pic that looks a little better IMO :-)

Keep in mind that this flat picture of the top doesn't show how well it accommodates my very 3 dimensional body, lol! Also, when I am finished with it - AKA I run out of yarn and literally CAN'T go any further, lol - I will post a pic of it on my body. It looks weird in these pics, but it really does look good on me in person :-D

One last note, as far as I can tell, the original dress was made in the same size thread as I am using, so the proportions of the dress seem to suggest that it was actually made in miniature to fit a rather tiny mannequin for show purposes. I must admit that making tiny clothes SERIOUSLY appeals to me, lmao!

Okay, moving on! In addition to this project, I have also wanted to practice my beading technique BUT I didn't really have a project to make. SO, I decided to simply doodle, lol! Here's a pic of my doodle, but now that I have "mastered" the bead technique, I am going to pull this apart and remake it into a beaded purse or something that I can carry with me and show off proudly, lol!

I decided to tilt the piece so that a slightly different perspective could be seen :-)

Even though this is just a doodle, part of me thinks that if made right, this could have made a pretty kick ass sleeve cuff on an old-timey, renaissance style dress. Definitely something to keep in mind :-)

Apple Wine

This wine is going to be arguably the easiest wine I have made yet, because I cheated, lol! I bought a gallon of Organic Apple Juice from the grocery store on sale for I think $6. As a fan of Sandor Katz Wild Fermentation, I decided to try his spontaneous apple cider, only I wanted to give it a little boost. SO...

I poured most of that gallon of apple juice into a gallon-sized glass jar, added raisins from a previous batch of Dandelion Wine, and then added a handful or two of fresh organic raisins. The reason I added raisins when the recipe basically calls for me to just set the juice out on the counter and let it sit for a while is because I know I have a bunch of wild mold in my house, and I wanted to give the apple juice a good culture to ensure that it didn't get moldy before it started to ferment.

I started it about a week ago now, and have been tasting and smelling it every day. I've also had to scoop small patches of mold off, but yes, it has started to ferment, and already tastes like it'll be an interesting wine. (Note, I am not posting a picture because it has a layer of Kahm yeast on top which doesn't look pretty, but is harmless and possibly beneficial.)

The benefits of starting with juice is that I don't have to worry about filtering it later on. The down side is that even though it is organic juice, there's still preservatives in it, not to mention that it has been pasteurized and also condensed and reconstituted to a standard sweetness.

Even so, I'm excited to see how this particular wine experiment turns out :-D

Heracles - Herakles - Hercules - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Heracles' Childhood

       After such a difficult birth and two attempts to kill me as a baby, one would think that I had a hectic or precarious childhood. That's not true though. I had a fairly normal childhood... for a Prince and son of a God.

       My stepfather taught me how to drive a chariot. Castor – mortal twin brother of Pollux – taught me to fight with a sword. Autolycus – son of Hermes and a notorious thief – taught me how to wrestle.

       A King by the name of Eurytus of Oechalia taught me the fine art of archery... to his regret! But I'll tell you about that later. It's not important at the moment.

       What is important is that I had a teacher named Linus who taught me music. He was the son of Apollo and Calliope. I was just a little bit too young at the time, but Linus made it clear that he was supposed to mentor me in something else too...

       See, ever since Zeus fell in love with the young Prince Ganymede – whose father was the second King of the, then, relatively newly founded Troy – there has been a tradition that men would abduct boys of a certain age – around 15 or so – and initiate them in the ways of pleasure. Knowing that Linus was to have this honor – of being my Erastês; lover – he always treated me like his Erômenos; beloved.

       Those two terms were used frequently, so I feel I should explain them a bit. An Erastês was an older man – often in his early 20's – that mentored a boy of around 15 in so many things, including physical love. The boy – Erômenos, which meant beloved and could actually refer to anyone, male or female – would not make the decision to enter into the relationship, but rather his father made the decision. Once approved as suitable, the Erastês would abduct the boy for a initiation period. He was also required to give the boy several customary gifts.

       I must admit that I did have feelings for my future lover, and often wondered what it would be like – the day that he abducted me. Sadly, one day as I practiced my lyre, he scolded me by hitting me on the back of my head. In frustration, I hit him on the head with my lyre, bashing in his skull and killing him instantly.

       I had no idea that he could be killed! I stared at him in shock and horror! Slowly, what I had done sank in, and I began to throw a loud and crazy tantrum.

       Amphitryon rushed to find out what had happened and found me grieving. The authorities were called in and I was accused of murder, but I explained that it was an accident.  Perhaps because my father was the King of the Gods, or perhaps it was because I was obviously sorry for what I had done; either way, I was declared not guilty of murder.

       Even so, Amphitryon decided to send me away. My punishment was to tend cattle on a lonely mountain near Thespiae. I felt this was a fitting punishment and left without complaint.

       Time passed, and then – one day – I was visited by two Goddesses: Aretê and Kakia. Aretê was tall and a bit plain. She was dressed in all white and carried herself primly. Kakia was shorter and a bit plump. She was dressed in a way that made me blush! Kakia came up to me – I was probably 13 or 14 at the time and afflicted by the awkward passion of youth – and she started stroking my body.

       “My dear boy, choose me and your life shall always be happy and easy. Everywhere you go, people will just give you whatever you desire.” She kissed me. “There shall be treasure.” She kissed me again. “Pleasure,” she promised as she stroked my groin, causing me to squirm in embarrassment. “Women and wine...” She kissed me yet again, stroking my body even more. I had originally been sitting up, but now I reclined, almost completely under her.

       Aretê shook her head. “Don't listen to her! If you choose my path, you will have to work hard and suffer, yes, but...”

       “But what?” I wondered curiously, figuring that she had to have something that could compete against treasure... and a hand sending delicious shocks through my groin into my entire body.

       “There will be glory and honor! The people will praise you, and the Gods will welcome you as one of their own.”

       I sat up abruptly, interrupting another of Kakia's kisses and pushing her away slightly. “Glory?”

       I daresay that I was probably too young still to fully understand each of my choices. Kakia was basically offering me an endless amount of money, wine, and sex; and Aretê was offering me hardship and toil so that I could be a Hero of great honor. If I had known then what I know now, would I have made the same choice?

       I'd like to think so!

       Grinning at Aretê, I made my decision. “I choose honor and glory!”

       Kakia pouted in disappointment before abandoning me in the pursuit of someone more interesting. Aretê returned my grin – seeming a bit relieved – and then gave me a single chaste kiss.

       “Your fate has been decided! Remember, though your life will be a hard one, you'll be the greatest Hero who ever lived!”

*****

       Shortly after I turned 15, I received word that my twin brother Iphicles had been married to a woman named Automedusa – daughter of Alcathous, King of the city of Megara; which had been founded by his father Megarus. It was a highly adventitious match that Alcathous insisted on making official as soon it was mentioned, because he was a very busy man. Thus, I wasn't able to be invited to the wedding before it happened.

       Almost the moment I finished reading the letter – with a wistful sigh as I wondered how long my punishment would last – I learned of a minor tragedy. Thespius – King of Thespiae, where I was staying – had a problem with a fearsome lion killing flocks of sheep at the foot of Mount Cithaeron.

       Perhaps more than a bit overjoyed at having something to do, I set out on the adventure that very moment. Despite being trained to wield all manner of weapons, I had nothing to kill the lion with; so I used my bare hands. Men in the service of King Thespius witnessed my heroism and invited me to visit with Thespius.

       Triumphant, I eagerly agreed. King Thespius honored my bravery with a great feast. As we ate, he went on and on about how impressed he was.

       I blushed a tiny bit, and tried to explain why he needn't fuss. “It's only natural since I'm the son of Zeus. It was no big deal; I'm just glad to be of service!”

       Thespius laughed incredulously. “No big deal! Why, if not for your bravery, we might all have starved this winter! People might have gotten killed!”

       Suddenly, Thespius slapped his knee in enlightenment. “I know! As a reward for helping me, I'll let you spend a night with my daughters!”

       Where once I had shied away from an offer of sex, I now perked up. “A night with your daughters?”

       “Yes. I have 50 daughters, all born – fairly close in age – to...” He roared with laughter. “I forget how many women!”

       He beckoned me to come closer to him, and then put an arm around me when I did. “Are you anything like your father – Almighty Zeus – when it comes to women?”

I shrugged. “I don't yet know.”

       With a mysterious chuckle, he patted me on the back. “Well then, I guess it's about time to find out!”

       Much later on, I heard stories about this. Some say that the King kept me as his guest for up to 50 nights to give me time to stroll through the garden of his daughters. Some say that he had to dupe me by saying that he was repeatedly sending me the same one, relying on the dark of night to cover the fact that it was a different daughter each night. Some say that I made love to them all in one night...

       You want to know the truth? I was the age considered ripe to learn about sex and I had never had any before. When given the opportunity to spend just one night with Thespius' 50 daughters, I took it!

       They were shy at first – it was their first time too, after all. I looked around at all of them, noticing that they were all my age or older. A slow smile spread across my lips as I made some quick calculations.

       I had 12 hours before they would come to take me away. This meant that if there was 48 of them, I could devote exactly 15 minutes to each of them. That seemed like plenty of time to me!

       “Listen to me, girls,” Thespius demanded sternly. “I am rewarding this young man with a night in your arms, so be sure to make it a memorable one!”

       An astonished and somewhat excited whisper rippled through them as their father left and locked the door.

       “Finally!” The oldest one gasped in praise as she threw her arms around me. “I was beginning to think that I would be a virgin forever!”

       The rest all nodded and murmured in agreement. All except for one. She backed herself into a corner and muttered: “I plan to stay a virgin forever!”

       I shrugged. “I can respect that.”

       That was probably my last coherent thought for quite some time. The girl in my arms kissed me, and the part of me that was definitely Zeus' son emerged. I sent up a grateful prayer that I would know what to do, and I did.

       We kissed each other hungrily as we tore the clothes off our bodies. For the first one, all I could think about was burying myself deep inside her. She accepted me with a relieved sigh, and then we both ground our bodies together in a way that felt insanely good!

I don't think I lasted the entire 15 minutes that I planned to devote to her. To me, it felt like less than five minutes passed before I was overcome with the need to fill her up. I groaned with pleasure.

       Don't think for one second that she was left out! I think Aphrodite or maybe even Zeus himself was in the room there with me, because my first lover was shuddering and crying out from her own climax.

       Suddenly, I was surrounded by naked girls! They pulled their eldest sister away from me, and then vied for my attention. I kissed them as they stroked my body and sucked on their nipples whenever I got the chance.

       One pushed me onto my back unexpectedly so that she could mount me like I was a horse. She rode me until she was crying out in ecstasy. My mouth was occupied by her sisters; even so, I gripped her hips as I filled her up. I'm pretty sure that I lasted a good 10 minutes with her, but honestly, I wasn't paying any attention to the clock!

       The third sister straddled me, and by now, I was familiar with the brief sensation of breeching a maidenhead. I rolled her under me so that I could pound into her. She gasped, her eyes wide in surprise at how big I was compared to her tight virginal hole.

       After her, I buried myself inside the next sister. My lips, my hands, my shaft, my entire body was occupied making love to as many of the sisters as I could. They all moaned and sighed in pleasure as one by one, I pumped them full of my seed.

       Well... all except for one. As she said, she did not want any man, and – true to my word – I did not force her to have sex with me. I'm not entirely certain that I could have by that point; I was exhausted!

       A mere 10 hours after I started, I utterly passed out! I think a few of them tried to have fun with me again, and who knows? Maybe the part of me that comes from Zeus complied. I have no idea. I really don't think that even the hounds of Tartarus could have woken me at that point!

       When Thespius came to get me, he had to have two of his men drag my unconscious body to a guest bedroom to rest. His daughters were all semi-unconscious too, except for the one. She explained that I had indeed had sex with the rest of her sisters.

       I'm told that Thespius swore in incredulous awe and sacrificed the body of the lion I had killed to my father in a prayer that all his daughters would bear sons as strong and brave as I am.

       Zeus must have answered his request, because 10 months later, word reached me that I was the father of 51 sons – two of the girls had had twins! I didn't know whether to laugh or faint!

       But before that, I was wandering around all cocky and full of myself. And Aretê said that my life would be full of hardship! If that's her definition of hardship, she can send more my way anytime she wants!

Sanguine - Part 12

This story has been published to Kindle Vella.

Science Experiment

My boys love to watch Beakman's World - a show that teaches kids about science. On this particular episode, they were talking about chemistry and acid and bases. They said that even if kids don't have a chemistry set, there are certain things they can do at home.

One of the examples they gave was in the form of a challenge: How do you get a piece of ice off the table when all you can use is a piece of string? And no, tying the cube with the string was not allowed. The answer was:

Get the end of the string wet, set it on the ice cube, sprinkle salt on it, and then wait about 2 minutes.

Here's what happens:

Here's Gryffin proudly showing off his experiment, which - by the way - he disappeared into the kitchen and did all on his own without letting any of us know, lol!

You can even see Beakman in the background on TV. Yes he is blurry, but it's him, lol!

However, when they tried to replicate the experiment for Phoenix, it didn't work, but I think that was because they didn't have the string wet enough :-)

Here's why that works. The salt lowers the boiling/freezing point, so when you add unfrozen water - via the string - onto an ice cube, and then add salt, it starts to freeze the water, thereby sticking the string to the cube.

Pretty cool! :-)