Font of Fertility Ch. 42 (Alpha)

The following is the Alpha Draft of Font of Fertility Ch 42. As an Alpha draft, this is not the final work and may see major changes prior to final posting out in the wide world.

====================================

“Is she settled in?” Lindsey asked quietly.

I nodded, letting out a heavy exhalation as I flopped down onto the bed. The Penthouse was officially full.

How the fuck did I manage to buy a gigantic apartment with four bedrooms intended for my two girlfriends, and it ended up stuffed to the rafters in under a month?

Annalise didn’t have much stuff to move out of the room down in the ‘guest room’ hallway when she heard we were bringing a guest home who needed privacy and space. She'd gotten comfortable enough with Leandro’s near-chivalrous behaviour around the place that she wasn’t worried he was going to perv on Maya, and she had apparently already crashed in the master bedroom the night before ‘sleepover’ style with Linds and Stacey.

“Stacey and Annalise are with her,” I mumbled into the bed.

“We’ll get it sorted out, Jerry,” Lindsey said, getting up to kneel on the edge of the bed and thn swinging her leg over my hips so she could start massaging my back. “Are you OK?”

“Mmph,” I grunted.

“Uh-huh,” she said, and I could hear her smirk. “Do you want to postpone the Moira dinner?” she asked, her tone softening. “Today has already been a lot.”

“No, we can’t,” I grumbled, then turned under her so I was looking up at my gorgeous girlfriend. I let out a sigh as Lindsey ran her hands under the hem of my shirt and rubbed my stomach and up towards my chest. “Lauren caught you up on my suspicions?”

She nodded. “Probably the British Death seat, maybe the Chinese Life one,” she said. “Though that doesn’t super matter to Tina or Grace.”

“Not particularly,” I grimaced. “Though it does for us long-term. And I need to start checking… fucking everyone for that kind of stuff now. Which is going to cost magical power to keep up.”

“So we really need to figure out the siphoning plans,” Lindsey followed my logic, and I nodded. “OK. I’ll get a move on with that plan. You’re sure about Moira? I promise I can manage pushing the dinner and she’s an adult, she understands shit comes up sometimes.”

“No, baby,” I said, sitting up and wrapping my arms around her, feeling the comfort of holding her tightly. She hugged me back and kissed my cheek before I continued. “Moira… needs to be figured out. Not with finality, but I can’t just push important stuff back. And everything with Christiane-”

“Tina,” Lindsey corrected me.

“-Right, Tina,” I said. “Did Lauren-”

“She did,” Lindsey said.

“-Tina hit me like a lightning bolt,” I said. “Moira… didn’t. And now I’m wondering if maybe I felt like I liked Moira more because she was different from you, Lauren, Lindsey and…”

“Almost everyone you sleep with,” Lindsey offered.

“You know you’re a smartass when you finish every sentence for someone,” I smiled at her.

“That’s me, your smartass,” she snickered lightly and gave me a firm peck on the lips.

“Moira is great,” I sighed. “But she’s also not sure about anything, which is fair. There are plenty of legitimate hurdles and pitfalls and just plain issues if we were to get together - and she doesn’t even know about the magic part of things. Tina does. And…”

Lindsey stayed quiet this time, looking at me expectantly until we both broke into tired laughter.

“I love you,” I told her.

“I love you too, Jerry,” she sighed, brushing my hair back from my forehead. “So what do you want to do about Moira? It’s OK to not be in love with her. Hell, it’s OK to just be in lust with her, or something closer to lust than love.”

“I want to hear where she’s at,” I said. “A week might not be a fair amount of time for a decision like this, but also it’s kind of a long time to decide if trying a relationship is a good idea or not. If she’s still on the fence tonight, I think maybe that’s really just a no. It doesn’t make sense to open things up even more if she’s not sure about us.”

“Which brings me back to the other woman of the hour - what about Tina?” Lindsey asked.

That had me sighing again and I flopped back onto the bed, letting go of her to do so and spreading my arms wide as I landed sowas starfished on the comfortable mattress. “I don’t know,” I said honestly.

“‘Gay with a capital G,’” Lindsey quoted Tina from earlier.

“‘Still falling for you,’” I counter-quoted. “It’s more complicated than Moira in a couple of big ways, but a lot simpler on the magic-side of things. And Lindsey, she’s…”

“Just tell me this,” Lindsey smirked a little, leaning down to me until she was pressed down fully, her lips just barely brushing mine as she looked at me with hooded eyes. “Is she good for you, or just a lot of fun?”

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. “I thought good for us, but everything afterward made that complicated.”

“Mm,” she hummed softly, then kissed me with a slow, languid groan that vibrated through her lips. She pulled away and sat back up again, her weight pressing on my hips through her perfect, juicy ass. “What do you need to do now?” she asked. “Is there anything we can tick off your list?”

“Actually,” I said. “There is. Could you find Angie? I need to talk to her about yesterday.”

“OK,” Lindsey nodded, dismounting from me and standing up from the bed, but leaning back over to kiss my stomach before pulling my shirt back down over it. “Maybe looking half-sexed up isn’t the right look for that conversation.’

“Probably not,” I chuckled.

She winked at me and turned, sauntering out of the master bedroom to go find her friend and fellow girlfriend-concubine for me.

The conversation with Angie was easier in a lot of ways than I had expected - maybe even easier than I deserved. Giving some space from the Domestic Abuse judgement before we talked about it may have had a positive impact, but so had Angie seeing first-hand the impacts of magic like mine being used to straight up mess with people. She’d been all for smiting Trent Branche like I was Zeus, but that was the sort of thing that couldn’t be taken back.

Seeing Grace, Ned and Tina suffering from the fallout of magic that was able to be fixed put the consequences of me taking unilateral action into a bit more context. So did the weight of bing clear what ‘smiting’ meant - killing someone. Ending their life. Snuffing out their existence.

Neither of us was against the death penalty in theory - there were a number of crimes that we agreed would make someone more fit for that than ‘reformative justice’ like what I’d done with Trent. But the cost of getting that wrong, for any reason, was massive. It changed justice into murder, and the weight would be on me. No one else. And there wasn’t a system of checks and balances - no appeals process that ran for years or decades when I was judge, jury and executioner. I didn’t even have a humane prison to stash someone away.

There wasn’t really a period to the conversation more than it just trailed off with us laying propped up on the bed. She’d explained a bit more where she was coming from the night before, and a little bit more of how angry she still was with her home life growing up and her Mom jumping from bad relationship to bad relationship. That got me thinking about how, at some point, I would need to be introduced to multiple sets of parents - and tell my parents about the girls.

Not until I was out of the house at least. But just the idea of dropping that bomb on my parents, not to mention the Baxley’s, was the sort of thing that still scared the shit out of me.

Hearing about Angie’s homelife growing up and all the issues with her Mom and her boyfriends made me internally wince at the other thing that popped into my head - that she’d had parent problems just like Lindsey, and they’d both been… wild girls. It felt gross to sort of be psychoanalysing them both like that, but it popped into my head. They hadn’t had a good home life or father figure, and they went looking for affection sexually.

And then there was Aidra, with her Dad MIA and being raised by a Mother who was a bit of a man eater. And Annalise and her family issues that might have been the most fucked up of them all - evil scientist shit felt like it topped th pile at the moment.

I hurt for all of them and made sure to give Angie a firm squeeze as she rested her head on my shoulder.

I also wondered, if shitty family life correlated to seeking outside affection, what was Jordan’s excuse? Because she was a freak in the best way, but both her parents seemed present and engaged.

Getting woken up by a kiss was a suprise - at some point I must have dozed off while snuggling with Angie. It wasn’t my brunette girlfriend/concubine who was kissing me awake though, it was my hard-bodied other girlfriend/concubine.

“Time to get up, you stinker,” Stacey chuckled with a little smile when I started to kiss her back, pulling away teasingly. “You need to get ready for our dinner.”

“Is everything-”

“Tina is settled and Annalise and Maya are both staying in with her,” Stacey said. “They’ve got a bit of experience with magic shit blowing up their lives. I went out and got her a new phone and they’re helping her figure out how to start getting in contact with people, starting with her parents, so she can decide what to do next. Angie’s going to stay here as well since we don’t want to overwhelm Moira; her and Leandro are going to help give the other three a break in a while and get them down into the gym. Jordan sends her love, Aidra is complaining about her Mom and thinks you need to go fuck her ass to mellow her out, and Lauren covered with both your parents and Jay and Benji that you’ve come up to the city to visit me and Linds for the day and will be back home late.”

I sniffed in a long breath through my nose and let it out as a sigh as she smirked at me.

“We need to decide what you’re wearing too this not-a-date, Denny’s breakfast-for-dinner shitshow,” she said, still smirking.

I wrapped my arms around her and hauled her onto the bed as she laughed, letting me hug her tightly and kiss the crook of her neck as I rolled us entirely over so that I was on top of her.

“We need to get moving, lard butt,” she chuckled.

“I thought you liked my new and improved butt,” I said, kissing up her neck towards her ear.

“Yah, I do,” she said, wrapping one leg up around my waist and bouncing it on my ass. “But you still don’t deserve it from an exercise perspective so you’re a lazy lard butt.”

I scoffed playfully and thrust at her through our clothes in a dry humping motion. “Are you trying to tell me all the exercise I’ve been getting isn’t enough?”

She stopped me by grabbing my face with both hands and holding me still as she looked up into my eyes. “Yes,” she deadpanned. “Later tonight you’re gonna do some standing squats, and we’re all going to take turns being your weight vest.”

“I’m guessing one of the safety features of my weight vests is some sort of protective element for my penis?” I asked.

“Ew, no,” Stacey made a face. “Please never call it that again. Just say your cock.”

“Fine, for my-”

“Yes,” she grinned and then kissed me.

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

“It’s so good to finally meet you,” Lauren said, leaning in across the table a bit as she smiled at Moira.

The Denny’s was about half full and was just about everything one could expect from the all-day Breakfast franchise - a warm interior trying to feel a little homey and getting about halfway there, an overstuffed menu that probably could have been cut in half width or lengthways and still had too many options, and tired but smiling service staff who may or may not have been on th edge of a nervous breakdown depending on how long ago their last smoke break was. The good outweighed the bad though -  it was loud enough between the music and the crowd that no one was going to overhear our awkward conversation, busy enough that no one was going to look twice at our group, and as long as no one tried to get unreasonably fancy for where we were at, we were guaranteed decent food.

Stacey had taken command of Operation: Dress Jeremiah with the goal of making me ‘attractive and older than you are, but casual to match the vibe.’ The others had been supportive of her final choices, but I wasn’t sure she’d nailed it because I sort of felt like I was just wearing spring clothes instead of winter sweaters between the unbuttoned flannel shirt and the jeans and ‘magically altered’ sneakers. Lindsey had taken charge of my hair and it was styled similar to how they usually liked it, but a little neater and tucked away.

I wasn’t sure what the girls had been going for when they’d come out of the bedroom one-by-one as they finished getting ready. Lindsey had been first, wearing what might have been a nice, simple summer dress that should a decent amount of cleavage, but had on tights underneath and a thin sweater overtop - it did nothing to diminish the cleavage, but made it a ‘warmer’ outfit for going out into the cold. Stacey was next and she was wearing a nice top and tight jeans with her college varsity jacket - if anything I thought she kind of looked younger instead of older if I didn’t know it was the Cardinal jacket and not for some high school.

Lauren had come out last and had been even more confusing - she was wearing a dress, which already sort of blew my mind because it was Lauren. She hated skirts and dresses. I guessed that it belonged to Lindsey, though Lauren must have been wearing a push-up bra to give herself the extra cup size to properly fill it out. My girlfriend was also wearing more makeup than normal, with red lipstick instead of her usual plain lip gloss and touches of eye shadow she usually went without.

I’d tried my best to keep my confusion off my face and told her she looked nice - which she did, it was just different - and she gave me her usual warm smile and a kiss of the cheek that needed to be rubbed clean.

We’d gotten there a little early, Angie handing Victorious’ keys over so we could ride in style to our not-date. The fact Victorious almost seemed disappointed that Angie wasn’t with us made me narrow my eyes a little, unsure how to feel about my magic demon horse-car preferring my girlfriend over me, but Lindsey set him straight with some teasing about becoming a ‘one woman car.’ His spluttering and bravado had been a nice distraction from the mounting pinch in my gut.

Despite us being early, Moira had been even earlier and was waiting for us. As soon as we walked in, my eyes were drawn to her, and that pinch in my gut only tightened more because I started running comparisons.

Why did I react to seeing Christiane the way I did? Why didn’t I react to Moira that way?

She was beautiful - that hadn’t changed. Slender, dainty and aristocratic features. Her blonde, jaw-length light blonde hair was a little wavy that evening and looked silky and grabbable. I even thought her casual dress for our dinner, a little sweater and blouse combo similar to Stacey’s, except unbranded and a little tighter, and some yoga pants, looked good on her.

I was attracted to Moira. As a person, and physically. Sexually. I could imagine her naked and feel my own physical response to that. I wanted to have sex with her again. Hold her in my arms. Just kiss her hello.

But was that enough? Did I want those things enough to make up for all the shit that being with me would cause Moira? For all the extra effort being with her would add to my life? Not the stuff with her - that would be easy - but everything else. Time management. Finding ways to be there for her in a way she deserved. Being involved with a woman over a decade older than me. I was already struggling with that now, what would my life look like in a year?

I wanted answers, and the only way I was going to solidify what this relationship was with Moira would be to talk to her. There wasn’t any other way.

Lindsey had led the way to the table where Moira was waiting, a booth along the side wall, and had wrapped Moira up in a big hug before making way. Stacey’s hello was a little more demure but still a hug, and then it was my turn, and I found myself in an awkward half-hug because the mood was definitely weird between us still. Then I introduced Lauren, and they said hello a little awkwardly as well and shook hands, but then Lauren sighed a little and shook her head, stepping in and hugging Moira quickly.

We ended up sitting with Moira and I on the outside edges of the semi-circular booth, Lauren next to me and Lindsey next to Moira, and Stacey smirking at the top of the circle as she watched me and the three blonde women be awkward.

That’s when Lauren leaned over the table a bit and told Moira it was good to finally meet her.

“You too,” Moira answered her. “I feel like maybe I haven’t gotten the whole… picture of things, really. Properly. Between these three.” She gestured to Stace, Linds and I.

“That’s because Jerry is the glue for our relationships, but Lauren is the glue activator,” Lindsey said with a little squinty smile flashing Lauren’s way.

“Wait, what does that make us? Planks of wood in a piece of furniture? Pieces of paper in an arts and crafts project?” Stacey asked with a laugh.

Small talk started. Get-to-know-you stuff, focused on Lauren and Moira. I tried to keep focused on it; I knew everything about Lauren there probably was to know, but there was plenty I didn’t know about Moira still. The conversation was dominated by the two of them, with me, Linds and Stacey only really adding so much and laughing along politely.

Which meant I had time, maybe too much time, to stew in my own head.

I loved Lauren. I loved Lindsey and Stacey. Not less than Lauren, but each of them slightly differently. Same with Angie, Anna and Jordan. I… had never-to-be-spoken feelings for Aidra. Feelings that weren’t supposed to happen, especially with the way our relationship had developed from casual friends, to me being the third in a threesome with her then-boyfriend, to what we were now. But with all of them, other than Anna, there had been connections to my life before everything happened. Feelings, of different kinds, had been rooted there. I’d liked all of them, and lusted after them in what I hoped was a healthy, normal way and not creepy or anything. Love, romantic love, hadn’t really been that far off, right?

Tina and Grace had elicited a wild response, though. Something greedy and primal. Tina, in particular, but not solely. Everything had clicked so fast. Personality. Looks. Chemistry.

Someone had manufactured it, yeah, but that didn’t stop me from feeling it. That didn’t halt the truth that I could feel that way about someone. 

And sitting across from Moira, seeing her smile and engage with the others, occasionally meeting her gaze… I liked her. A lot. I wanted her.

But I didn’t want her the way I’d wanted Tina.

Was that the difference between like and love, or love and lust? Did I believe in love at first sight, and was that what I’d felt? If I did, did that diminish love that grew unexpectedly?

“So, I assume the four of you stay at the Penthouse when you’re in the city, then?” Moira asked the girls. “That’s a big apartment for two, but not that big a bedroom if you’re all cramming into the master. What do you do with the other rooms, or do you guys keep your own space, too?”

“Actually, the other rooms are currently occupied,” Lindsey said with a little smirk. “Seriously, Stace, we got what - three days to ourselves up there and then we had new roommates?”

“Yep,” Stacey chuckled. “And now it’s a full house.”

Moira’s look of confusion made me groan internally. “How many roommates do you have?” the older woman asked.

“Good question,” Lindsey said, then started counting off on her fingers. “Annalise is in with us now - you’ll love her, she’s an absolute doll and is a bit more reserved, so I think you’ll get along great. She moved her sister Maya up here to enrol in school here in the city, so Maya has one of the guest rooms. Then there’s Jerry’s cousin Leandro - he’s a Spaniard and works as a bodyguard, so he’s crashing in one of the rooms while he’s in the city. Angie’s visiting for the weekend as well, so that’s six, but she’ll be in the master as well. And that leaves Tina in the last guest room.”

I’d been biting my tongue, trying not to reach across the table and our food to cover the gorgeous blonde’s mouth. Lindsey was undoubtedly the smartest woman I knew, and a major problem solver, but sometimes her tact was somewhat suspect when she wasn’t focused on ‘a problem.’ Moira’s mild alarm and calculations running behind her eyes made me clear my throat. “Tina is just a guest. A friend who needed a place to crash while she deals with some sucky life stuff before she heads back home.”

Lindsey shrugged, popping a forkful of pancake into her mouth.

“Well, eventually,” Lauren said, focusing on Moira. “Not that we’re packed in like sardines or anything. There’s plenty of space for hosting friends. Even overnight.”

“Ahem,” I cleared my throat. I’d caught a couple of weird comments earlier from Lauren that I’d put down to her being flirty and friendly, but that had been pretty blunt… flirting? Maybe more just ‘hitting on.’ “How was work this week, Moira?” I asked, trying to change the subject. “Any big sales?”

“No sales, but one of my clients purchased a new build out on the east end of the city,” Moira said, her eyes darting between me and Lauren. Questioning. Analysing. “That’s how the real estate business goes, though. Things will probably pick up again in the spring - no one really wants to be moving in the middle of winter if they can help it. That or going house hunting in the snow.”

Stacey pivoted the conversation again, likely seeing what I was seeing and feeling.

Lauren was kind of being… weird. Not weird, but off. She knew what tonight was about, and it was like she’d decided she wouldn’t be happy unless we went way beyond talking. I nudged her with my leg while Stacey had Moira’s attention, and Lauren glanced at me. I gave her a raised eyebrow question, and her response was one of reassurance, but for once I didn’t know what she was trying to reassure me about.

“I’m sorry,” Moira said, interrupting herself mid-sentence and shaking her head, along with my interrupting me from opening a psychic link to Lauren so I could ask her what was up. “Can we back up a second? All the people living in the penthouse right now - how many of them are… involved with you?”

“That’s sort of complicated,” I said, wincing a little. “Living there, only three. Angie is also with us and visiting from back home. So us four, plus Angie and Annalise.”

“So you have five girlfriends now,” Moira said calmly, clearly keeping a careful lid on her reaction.

I winced harder.

“Jeremiah has six girlfriends,” Lauren said. “But Jordan goes to university halfway across the country. He also has a few fuckbuddies. And he keeps us all very happy. Just like I hear he was keeping you happy - you know he’s totally capable of that.”

“Lauren,” I said.

“What? It’s not like she doesn’t know that I would know,” Lauren said, glancing at me again and then focusing back on Moira. “You don’t need to be worried about numbers - we’re all friendly girls, and you’ll keep getting exactly what you want.”

“Lauren,” Lindsey said sharply, which was kind of surprising because of her own tact issues. But she’d also taken on the Moira situation as a problem in front of her, so maybe Lindsey had a ‘master plan’ that she hadn’t relayed to the rest of us. Or maybe she just saw the look on Moira’s face.

“I’m-” I started, but Moira held up a hand to stop me.

“Six girlfriends, plus fuckbuddies,” Moira said slowly. “And you’re all just expecting me to… understand that?”

“You understood when it was just three of us,” Stacey said quietly.

“Six is double three, and isn’t even everyone involved,” Moira countered. “Has everyone been tested for STDs? Am I at any sort of risk here?”

“Everyone is clean, Mo’,” Lindsey said, reaching over like she wanted to take Moira’s hand but hesitating and putting her hand down on the table instead.

“God,” Moira groaned, wiping her face with both hands as she let her anxiety crack through a bit. “This is fucking insane.”

“It’s not that insane,” Lauren said, her voice barely kept from being a scoff. “Jeremiah is an amazing guy. In bed, sure, but also outside of it. You’ve clearly figured that much out, or else you wouldn’t be here. Why lie to yourself about it? Let’s just have fun, maybe flirt a bit instead of being awkward, then we can head back to the penthouse and get to know each other pro-”

“OK,” I said sternly as I stood up from the table and held my hand out to Lauren expectantly. “I think maybe we should take a minute.”

Lauren gave me a look that said she thought I was being dramatic, but as our eyes remained locked she got a little more stubborn. She didn’t argue, though; instead she took my hand and let me help her up and out of the booth.

“We’ll just be a couple of minutes,” I said. “Sorry.”

Lauren was squeezing my hand hard as we walked through the Denny’s restaurant towards the front door and outside. All I wanted was to manage my own relationship issues and figure out what my relationship with Moira was, if anything. That’s all I wanted. And somehow it was all going to shit when it should have been pretty fucking simple. I kept going, all the way to the side of the building out of sight of any windows, before stopping and turning to face Lauren. It was cold out, but neither of us cared much at the moment.

“What the fuck was that?” I asked my girlfriend, managing to keep from shouting but my exasperation definitely coming through.

“What was that?” Lauren asked back at me, gesturing to make it clear she meant me pulling her out of there.

I hadn’t fought with Lauren in two years. The last time we’d both been sophomores and the shouting match had escalated fast and loud - but that also felt like so long ago, and we’d been such different people. Especially now, with who we were. What we were. And we’d been friends, not in a relationship. Not together.

We both knew this was our first fight as a couple and I could tell she was keeping her own voice in check just as much as I was.

It felt fucking awful.

“We’re obviously not on the same page here, Lauren,” I said. “I thought we were.”

“The page is that you’ve had a shitty day already, Moira just needs to get over her hang-ups, so what’s the problem?” Lauren asked.

“The problem is that you’re deciding that unilaterally!” I said, trying hard not to let my voice rise. “I’m not expecting a final answer here tonight. This is just supposed to be getting you two to meet.”

“At this point, isn’t sex sort of part of us meeting properly?” Lauren asked. “I mean, seriously, Jerry.”

“No,” I said. “Sex isn’t part of meeting people. It’s just something that’s happening sometimes.”

“So what, then?” Lauren asked. “What do you want me to do instead of trying to get her to just face the facts? What do you want? Because I don’t know her.”

“I want you to stop pushing, Lauren,” I growled. “I need a fucking minute to breath here. And so does she. Moira isn’t just- No one is just a sex conquest. I don’t want them to be, anyway. Sometimes with the Judgements we might get uncomfortably close to that, or with people who just want a hookup, but I don’t want that.”

“Am I stopping, then?” she asked me. “Should I tell Aidra we’re not looking for anyone else for you to fuck? Because I thought we agreed that you need to do that.”

“I do,” I sighed. “But sex is different than a relationship, isn’t it? We’re not just talking about sex with Moira. She’s in her thirties, Lauren. She’s had a whole ass adult life before we stumbled into her life.”

“Before you stumbled into her life,” Lauren said. “I’m just getting here now, remember? I don’t know what she wants, I just know that her being unsure about that has been stressing you out.”

I grunted and shook my head, looking out into the parking lot for a moment as I got my thoughts in order. When I looked back at Lauren she was chewing on the inside of her lip self-consciously. “I love you,” I told her. “I love who you are, and I love who we are. Before and after magic. But this whole thing is messy and maybe we haven’t, I don’t know, figured things out one hundred per cent yet? Like - do you actually want to be finding the girls at school for me to have sex with? Because you kinda jumped on doing that, but-”

“Yes, God,” Lauren sighed. “That’s something that I’m fine with doing. That’s not a problem.”

“That’s not an answer to the question I asked,” I said, taking a half-step toward her starting to rub her arms since she was starting to shiver in the cold. “You being ‘fine’ with it is different than you wanting to do it.”

She rolled her eyes and then glared at me. “I… I like the way things are right now,” she said. “I like sharing you with Aidra at school. I like the shock value, and interest, when girls want a piece of you. Fuck, I like having the power to make that happen. I even like the kinkyness of hearing about what you’ve done with them when I’m not there.”

“Then can you respect that for sex, I trust you implicitly, but if we’re talking about relationships of some sort I kind of need to make sure that there’s something real between me and whoever it is?”

Lauren clenched her jaw several times, eyes wandering my face quickly. “I need more than that,” she finally said. “Like an example, because right now I feel like you’ve gotten that.”

I knew bringing up what just happened with Moira wouldn’t help things, so I grabbed onto the next most recent thing. “I mean like earlier today with Christiane,” I said. “Especially once we were in the Sanctum. You and I were on the same wavelength, Lauren - hell, Angie and Linds were too - but once we were there you and Angie kind of dominated the conversation. And I love the fact that most of you girls are, ah, confident and free to make your wants known when it comes to sex, but I barely got to say anything or show her who I was in the conversation. She said after during the whole mess that she was ‘kind of’ falling for me, but I honestly can’t tell if that was real or just the memory spell messing with her somehow because outside of sex we barely talked.”

Lauren was grimacing by the time I finished. “Oh,” she said.

“I just need to be able to take charge sometimes,” I sighed. “More than just in bed. In conversations, when flirting. It can’t all be you or one of the harem doing that for me.”

She breathed in a deep breath through her nose and then let it out through her mouth in a puff of cold mist. “You do realise you’re kind of awful at flirting, right? Like, with someone you aren’t already in a relationship with.”

“That honestly doesn’t surprise me, Lauren,” I sighed, running my fingers through my hair and shaking my head. “It’s not like I got a lot of practice considering I’ve been in love with one girl since we were like ten.”

“And yet you managed to get multiple other girls to fall for you pretty fucking fast,” Lauren smirked wryly.

“Yeah, well, I’ve been thinking about that and there are some pretty big caveats in there that gave me a jump ahead - friendship being the most popular, and trauma-bonding being the roughest,” I said, and Lauren winced at that. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, Lauren,” I continued with a sigh. “About… what I want.”

“So tell me what you want,” Lauren said, slowly starting to smirk again. “What you really, really want.”

“Not helping,” I deadpanned at the Spice Girls reference.

“Just tell me where your head is at,” Lauren said, rolling her eyes again though this time it was more at her own need to cut the tension with a bad joke. “I’m sure you’ve already got it charted onto a timeline or a graph or something.”

“I don’t, but that’s actually a good idea,” I said, frowning in thought.

“A timeline of love?” she smirked.

“No, a Love Graph,” I said. “I mean - love is a combination of personal attractive factors, right? So what if the graph is like… Like on the X-axis and Lust on the Y-axis? I can love someone high on the Like scale without being romantically in love with them because they are low or even negative on Lust. Like my Parents - I heavily like them both, but- yeah. Or I can find someone attractive and feel lust for them physically, but hate their guts while still admitting I could fuck them - like Emily.”

Lauren was nodding along slowly, both of us hugging ourselves in the cold, and I let out a little breath of exasperation and tapped my magic, reaching out to rub her arms again and give us both a mild resistance to the chill of the evening. She chuckled softly and gave me a thankful look, then frowned as she focused back on what she said. “So this Romantic Love graph is what? A way to gauge if someone should be a candidate for the harem?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “Maybe? I think it’s a more complicated decision than that, but it could be a way to get my head on straight.”

“So where does everyone currently sit?” she asked, and I could tell that she was really asking where she sat on the metaphorical graph. It was so weird seeing her… self-conscious? Worried?

“If it goes from zero to one hundred, Lauren, then you’re maxed out at on hundred on both axis,” I said. “You're my person. You’re who everyone else gets judged against.”

Lauren let out a breath and then hugged me tightly. “Sorry,” she said into the crook of my neck.

“I forgive you,” I said, hugging her back in a bear hug.

“No,” she said, pulling away slightly to look me in the eyes. “I mean I’m sorry that I’m not as good at telling you what I’m thinking as you are.”

“What are you thinking?” I asked, making a mental not that maybe I needed to ask her that more often to help prompt her.

“I’m- You’re right, I was dominating conversations today,” she said. “I didn’t mean to do it or anything, but I was. And I think it’s because of Moira.”

“Who you hadn’t met,” I said slowly, a little confused. “So… why?”

“Because we hadn’t met, but you’ve been stressing over this woman, Jerry,” Lauren said. “I- I like sharing you. With the girls, with girls at school. Aidra’s Mom, Other Anna. Grace. And fuck that was great sex with Christiane today. I don’t need to be there to like it, but… I’m fucking jealous too, OK? Not of a hook-up, but of your time if it’s not just a hook-up. You had this whole relationship thing developing with Moira and I didn’t know who the hell she was other than what I heard from you, Linds and Stacey. And you went back to see that woman in Miami. Both of those… They really fucking bothered me even if I knew th logical Why’s of the situations.”

I groaned, hugging her tighter again. “I wish you told me,” I said. “In a way that got through my thick skull.”

“It’s not thick, it’s just big boned,” she joked, hugging me back.

That made me snort. “I think that’s the same thing.”

“Maybe it is,” she whispered, hugging me even tighter before letting me go.

“I won’t go to Amara again without you,” I promised her. “And if anything smells like more than a hook-up and you don’t know the person, I’ll make sure you know and can meet her ASAP.”

“Maybe ASARP,” Lauren shrugged, shaking her head.

“What?”

“As soon as reasonably possible,” she said, grinning a little. “We don’t need to bust me into someone's life like the Kool-aid man.”

“OK,” I agreed, then let out a heavy breath as I took both her hands in mine. “I fucking hate that we-”

“I know,” Lauren said. “I know.”

“We’re in this togther,” I said. “We just need to treat potential sexual partners and romantic partners differently.”

Lauren nodded and pulled me into another tight hug, and it wasn’t until she sniffed hard that I realised she was crying.

“Wait, what is it?” I asked.

“It’s nothing.”

“Lauren,” I said.

Her body tensed for a moment, then relaxed in my arms like she’d decided something. “Just something from my letter. Something Ophalia warned me about, among other stuff.”

“Want to tell me?” I asked quietly. Lauren still hadn’t told me anything about the long letter she’d received from Ezekiel’s Prime, all I knew is that it had brought her to tears.

Lauren kissed my cheek, running one hand up to hold the back of my neck as she pressed her lips to my ear. “She told me that one of the hardest things I would have to do is learn to live with is you falling in love with other people,” she said. “And I already knew you would, Jerry. It’s just really fucking hard to see or hear about it happening with someone who isn’t…”

I squeezed her tighter as she trailed off.

“I’ll never start a relationship without your approval,” I promised her. “All the girls in the harem get a say, but you have veto power first and foremost, Lauren.”

“I promise to give you space to figure out if you want more relationships,” she promised me in return.

I turned and kissed her cheek, and she sniffed hard again before turning to meet me and kiss me back. We held each other for a long moment until her phone buzzed in her pocket. When we seperated so she could check it, she coughed softly and grinned in embarrassment. “Stacey asks, ‘WTF???’ Multiple question marks.”

“We better get back in there,” I sighed, and she nodded and took my hand as we re-entered the restaurant.

Lauren tugged on my hand to stop me just inside the door though and we stopped in the threshold. “I’m not vetoing Moira,” she told me after we were looking into each other’s eyes. “But… like, she’s hot, Jerry, I get that. But do you feel strongly about her, or because she’s in front of you and needs to be chased? Because honestly, you haven’t been turned down really and I don’t super get you and Moira yet.”

I opened my mouth but slowly closed it, not sure how to respond. It was a good question, and one I hadn’t asked myself yet. “I’ll think about that,” I told her, and she nodded before we headed back to the table.

I’d started wondering if I wanted Moira because she was in front of me - that was a danger I was already dealing with and had identified when I was with Tala and Other Anna.

Things with Moira had developed weirdly. I’d been cautious at first with her, doubtful of Lindsey and Stacey being sure the real estate agent would sleep with us. Then, the next morning in the shower with her, I’d felt comfortable and confident and responded to being with her and wanting her to feel good about it all.

I wanted to reassure her. I wanted her particularly to not regret or doubt or night or morning together. But… had I been falling in love with her? Had I felt something more, or had all of this chasing made me more dogged?

Was this all just me not wanting to leave someone without them feeling one hundred per cent good about what we did, and tunneling into that?

We turned a corner toward the table and Moira, Linds and Stacey were all still there, each of them a little relieved to spot us coming back. 

Moira was attractive. I liked Moira.

Did I love Moira? Did I think that love could reach the same heights as Lindsey or Stacey? Could it get close?

Would it be fair to expose her to the magic world, the dangers of my position, and the life changes that could come with it, if she could only get halfway up the graph? Two-thirds?

And what did it say that, even with how fucked up everything was, my gut placed Christiane higher than Moira on that graph?

I definitely wasn’t in love with Moira. I could maybe fall in love with her but I also… was there a point to chasing someone for a maybe when my life was already so fucking full?

That, really, was my answer.

I was ready to try more with Moira, but I couldn’t constantly be chasing her. She needed to be able to adapt to my reality - in a normal relationship it would be more mutual than that, but I wasn’t normal and we would never have a normal, monogamous relationship. And that didn’t even account for magic.

It wasn’t fair to ask of her, but it just was what it was.

“Sorry about that,” I said, letting Lauren into the booth first.

“No, he’s not,” Lauren said. “I’m sorry. I was being… pushy. Honestly, Moira, it’s weird to be meeting a woman for the first time who is sort-of-maybe-possibly considering a relationship with my boyfriend already. I started to make things uncomfortably weird instead of just our usual weird. My bad.”

“Told you,” Lindsey said, smirking at Stacey. The brunette sighed and rolled her eyes, digging into her purse and pulling out a five dollar bill to hand over to Lindsey.

“Really?” I asked. 

“To be fair, they were only betting on who would apologise more,” Moira said with a cautious smile. Then she focused on Lauren. “I appreciate the apology. And I understand how odd this all is. It’s only been a few weeks - this all has moved very fast. I know I have some emotional whiplash from it all.”

The last piece of the puzzle fell into place.

I hadn’t even had magic for two months - hell, it had barely been one month. My magic, combined with the realities of the modern world, made it feel like I needed to move fast. Build my harem fast, learn everything about magic fast, power up fast. But my sensibilities, my modern, Western Civilisation sensibilities of liberal individuality were trying to compete with the expectations of centuries millennia ago.

Time pressure in one area of my life, and how fast things developed with the others, was making me move too fast.

Moira and I had only known each other for a few weeks. Not months. Not years. And it wasn’t like we were seeing or even talking to each other often. Had we even spent 24 hours together in total?

And Christiane… I wasn’t in love with her, obviously. Seeing potential was a different thing.

I needed to be careful.

I needed to slow down.

“Look,” I said. “I just want to- I think it would be healthy if we just put this on the table. Tonight was mostly about you two meeting, and letting Moira get more of a casual feel for us. So can we just take making a decision tonight, or even just after this meeting, off the hook? For now we just see if we all work as friends?”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Lindsey said, then smirked at Lauren. “Almost like the original goal of tonight.”

“I already apologised,” Lauren sighed.

“Doesn’t mean we can’t tease you about it,” Stacey grinned.

“Thank you, Jeremiah,” Moira said to me. “This is all…”

“A lot,” I nodded. “I know.”

I still had half my plate of french toast to go, even if it was getting cold.

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

“So… what the fuck was that?” Stacey asked once we were all back out and were still shutting Victorious’ doors, alone once again without risk of anyone overhearing us.

I sighed, mimicking bringing the key up to turn over th demon car’s engine, and he thundered to a start as his radio scrambled for a moment. “Yes, Jeremiah Grant,” his multiple radio-announcer voice said. “What the fuck was that? You are leaving this place without securing your newest female?”

“OK, Vicky,” Lindsey said, patting the front dash since she’d called shotgun for the passenger seat while Lauren and Stacey were in the back seat. “Maybe cool the ‘securing a female’ talk.”

“Lauren and I just needed to get on the same page,” I said to the girls in the back, then turned to look at the radio in the dash since that’s where I kind of visualised the car’s face. “We’re heading back home.”

Victorious started driving out of the parking lot, and Lindsey sighed and buckled in before turning to sit almost sideways in her seat. “Just to be clear, we were all on the same page before we got here. Or we were supposed to be. What happened, Lauren?”

“Exactly what I told Moira,” Lauren said. We’d spent almost an hour and a half with the older blonde woman, and the goodbyes hadn’t been as awkward as the hellos, but they still hadn’t been fully comfortable. I’d been looking forward to that dinner for most of the week, dreading it but also hopeful - now that it was over, it almost felt like a bigger weight on my shoulders because the answers it had brought up hadn’t been final in any way I’d hoped for. “I got in my own head about her, OK? And I tried to play it cool when I wasn’t entirely cool.”

“OK, that makes sense,” Stacey said. “But are you cool now?”

“Maybe?” Lauren sighed. “Sort of? More than before.”

“We were moving too fast,” I filled in. “And yeah, a lot of stuff needs to move fast right now. Faster than I’d bet any other Seat has had to before. But that doesn’t mean that we should be speed-running relationships.”

For a moment the only sound in the car was Victorious engine and the radio playing some heavy rock song I didn’t recognise.

“Not like that,” Lauren said.

“Wait, what did I say?” I asked, immediately realising that Lindsey and Stacey were both carefully guarding their expressions.

“You put in your mouth, Jerry,” Lauren sighed.

“OK, someone please tell me how I did it so I can know what to apologise for, because I’m obviously too close to what I said to see how I fucked up,” I said.

“We moved fast, dork,” Stacey said. “Fast as hell.”

“Do you think we need to… slow down?” Lindsey asked.

“Oh,” I said, blinking once and frowning. “That’s not- Fuck.” I shook my head, realising that maybe talking inside my own head as I grappled with the Why’s of my romantic life and only spitting out the end conclusion was a bad idea. “Shit. I didn’t show my work.”

That made Lauren snort softly.

“Can I show my thinking process, please?” I asked them.

“I think you’d better,” Stacey grumbled.

“OK, I- When I say we shouldn’t be trying to move super fast with relationships, I meant new relationships, but also with our own. Not because I think we, any of the three of you individually and me, went too fast - I think there’s mitigating elements to how fast we went, and not just because of the whole magic thing. It’s also because of how we’ve all known each other for so long already. Like - if magic wasn’t a thing, and Lauren and I decided before we ever started falling for each other that we were only ever going to be friends, I can’t see me and you, Stace, or you Linds, going slower than we have individually if we got together. The group stuff is all new to all of us, and it’s pushed things further and faster, but not in bad ways. But… I mean, Angie and I went too fast accidentally and fell for each other. Jordan committed to being my Sub after a night and morning of sex and hanging out one other time. I don’t regret being with either of them at all, but it was fast and I feel like I still have catching up to do with both of them because I know you all better than I do them.

“And then there’s Annalise. I mean… there isn’t a chance in hell I’d do anything to make her think I wanted her to leave, or end things,” I continued. “But it’s so complicated because of how we got together, and I really need to do more catch-up one-on-one time with her. That was fast as hell - I’ve known her for a month and she’s already living with you guys. Like, that’s not a normal relationship progression at all, right? And I don’t need or necessarily want normal, but I’ve also only got so much bandwidth to process stuff and I don’t want to start running out of it for you guys.”

“And you feel like you are?” Lindsey asked, reaching across the middle console to me and gesturing for my hand. I gave it to her and she squeezed it firmly before waving her fingers with mine.

“I feel like I don’t want to find my limit,” I said. “I mean, I’m not at max capacity, but you guys already don’t get as much time as I want you to. As you deserve. And when I thought about it I realised that I haven’t even spent 24 hours with Moira in total. It feels like more because it’s been over the last few weeks, but that’s really not much time.”

“Jeez,” Stacey grimaced. “I wasn’t really thinking of it like that.”

“What about Aidra?” Lindsey asked. “Is she more of an Angie-Jordan scenario?” 

“She’s like… a blend of you guys and Angie and Jordan,” I said. “And Annalise, because she already knows and is bought in on magic. That makes things a lot easier, and she’s also…”

“Aidra is all in on Jerry,” Lauren said. “And us. Well, as ‘all in’ as she can be with her whole Witch Coven thing. Moira isn’t. Not that I don’t think she’s fine, but she just isn’t.”

“Does that all make sense?” I asked. “Or is my head up my ass?”

“Careful, you are magic. You could probably actually do that,” Stacey smirked.

“Yes, it makes sense,” Lindsey said. “Just maybe… pick your words a little more carefully, babe? And definitely don’t tell Angie you’re worried things moved too fast with her, even if you both kind of know it.”

“And you’re not allowed to tell her either, Victorious,” Lauren said.

The radio scrambled for a moment in a static grumbl and cough. “I will do and say whatever I want,” he said.

“I’ll get Jerry to fuck me and Angie here in the back seat if you promise not to,” Lindsey smirked.

“Don’t encourage him to make deals like that,” I groaned.

“Fine,” Victorious agreed. “The deal is struck. My silence has been purchased.”

I glared at Lindsey as she grinned at me - I wasn’t mad about the backseat threesome, I was mad that my talking demon-car was some sort of a voyeur or something. Why did he want me to fuck in his backseat? What if he was still a demon horse, would he be into m fucking someone whil riding him across country?

“So… if you’re really trying to slow down the new relationships, what about… the others?” Stacey asked.

“What others?” I asked back, lying to myself.

“Beth,” Lauren said. “You’ve got it bad for Beth at school.”

“Not to mention that dancer, Tala,” Stacy said.

“And Tina,” Lindsey added. “Hell, and Grace. She was planning on getting a divorce before all of this, and I saw the way you looked at her.”

I groaned and laid my head back on the head rest. It was a good thing Victorious drove for us because these conversations would have been a lot harder if I was focusing on the road. “Tala and I aren’t starting a serious relationship, we’re just… casually intimate. Not dating, not getting deeper. Definitely no L-word getting thrown around. And I see… potential with Beth, maybe, but it’s not exactly a low hanging fruit situation. A lot of stuff would need to change for that to happen even if she were interested.”

“OK, but if she was,” Lauren cut in. “Do you see her as more or less potential on the graph than Moira?”

That stopped me up for a moment, and Lindsey filled the gap by asking the obvious question of ‘What graph?’ and we explained the Like-Lust graph to her and Stacey.

“I think right now it’s hard to say,” I said. “But overall? I think maybe Beth has more potential, but that potential might be a lot harder to reach.”

“And what about Tina and Grace?” Lindsey asked, circling back and making me groan.

“I… don’t know,” I said. “Things are too complicated with them right now, especially because of the memory spell and how it affected them while we were getting to know them. I do know that if it was just about the versions of them we met before the spell, I wanted them both pretty badly. More than Moira. More than Beth, maybe. I shut that off in my mind for Grace because she was in a relationship - let alone a happy marriage - but Christiane…”

“What are you going to do?” Lauren asked. “About Christiane at least. She’s literally waiting for us at home right now.”

I shook my head.

“Be not afraid, Jeremiah Grant,” Victorious chipped in. “I have told you before - all you must do is run this filly down and make it plain you mean to have her. She will either submit, or require you to prove yourself, and you are Seat of Fertility! None is more worthy than you to breed with whichever female you desire.” 

“Oh, God,” I groaned, covering my face with one hand. We pulld up to the entry for the underground parking of our building and Lindsey handed me the badge to key open the gate.

“You know, I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Stacey said once I was fully inside the car again. “But he might be right.”

“What?” I asked, a little incredulous.

“Of course I am!” Victorious said.

“You’re gonna need to spell that one out a bit, Stace,” Lauren snorted.

“No, she’s kinda right about Vicky being right,” Lindsey said. I shot her a surprised look as well.

“Obviously it’s not the right move to just, like, corner her in a room and whip your dick out,” Stacey said. “And maybe not doing anything but being supportive tonight. But there’s something to be said for you just laying it out there that you’re super attracted to her and see the potential for more, but your help isn’t contingent on anything more happening.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Lindsey said. “I mean, you two pretty much were making love and have super hot fucking sex earlier. You can’t tell me you didn’t see the way they were looking at each other, Lauren.”

“I mean, for sure I did,” Lauren said and smirked a little. “It was… noticeable.”

“Great,” I said. “Great plan. Except for the fact that she’s currently going to be trying to piece together her life from before she got mind controlled. How am I starting this? ‘Hey, just FYI - I think you’re so beautiful you kind of make me tongue-tied, the sex between us was mind blowing, and I’d really like to get to know more about this real, unedited version of you to see if I like you as much as I did before I dispelled the memory spell. I see some amazing potential in a relationship between us if that’s something you’re interested in, and I know you’re dealing with a hell of a lot of shit right now, and so am I, so if it is something you’re interested in then I think we should take things slow and steady to give us both time to adapt and decide if it’s right for us.’”

“It… could use some wordsmithing, but you're good at that,” Stacey said.

“Maybe add that she’d get to have sex with most of the harem, too,” Lindsey smirked. “Since she leans way more Girl than Guy on the bisexual spectrum.”

“That is a perk,” Stacy smirked.

“You guys are crazy,” I grunted and shook my head.

“But are they wrong?” Lauren asked. “Think about it - when would be a good time to tell her and make sure the door is open if she wants to try things? In a week or two when she’s leaving or already gone? Tonight, right now, when she’s still in the thick of trying to work out what needs to happen? I vote the sooner you make it clear, with a buffer zone from the trauma of the spell effects, the better. Less time for things to go the wrong direction, or for her to overthink anything and end up putting you in the friendzone or feeling weird about you not bringing it up while you’re helping her.”

“None of you are wrong,” I sighed. “I just…”

“You know what you need to say, you just need to figure out how to say it,” Lindsey said.

“This would be a lot easier if I was some awful warlord just conquering lands and pillaging whatever I wanted,” I mumbled, rolling my eyes at myself. 

“That sounds like an amaz-”

“No,” Lindsey said sharply. “No pillaging.”

Victorious’ radio made a sound that was very close to him blowing a raspberry.

I did know what I needed to say to Christiane. And the girls were right, I needed to say it soon. Not tonight, but tomorrow for sure. Tonight I would focus on trying to help her problem solve as best I could because someone had used her to get to me, moving her across an entire ocean to do it against her will.

Fixing that was going to take some fucking work.

Change: Back home, ready to talk with Tina