Font of Fertility Ch. 30 (Beta) (Patreon)

The following is the Beta Draft of Font of Fertility Ch 30. As a Beta draft, this is not the final work and may see major changes prior to final posting out in the wide world.

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All Characters in sexual situations are 18 years or older.

This story is a continuation of the Font of Fertility series. I suggest reading Chapter 1 if you have not already. This chapter includes MF, magic conversations, and heading home.

Jeremiah Fucks after a date, and talks about Magical Industrial Agriculture.

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The trail of clothes we left through Moira’s house would have told anyone else following us exactly what was going on. My shirt ended up somewhere on the stairs, and my pants in the hall outside her bedroom. Her shirt was hanging from the bannister, if it hadn’t fallen off, and her pants had gotten half-kicked into a guest bedroom after I’d peeled them down to one ankle.

She was moaning softly as we kissed and I carried her to her bed. Her thin, fit frame put her on par with Aidra as the lightest of my sexual partners and I felt like I could have run a marathon carrying her. She had her legs hooked around my waist and her arms crossed behind my neck while I was holding her up by her little butt, my hands grabbing her firmly until my shins found the edge of her bed. I lowered her down slowly and she let go of me, letting me lay her on the bed as we looked at each other.

Moira was gorgeous. Her sharp features had such a beautiful, positive glow when she could have been cold or aristocratic in her daintyness. Her light golden blonde hair was wavy and splayed out around her head as she smiled up at me. She was down to the lingerie she’d had on under her clothes, a set not unlike what she’d worn that first night we’d been together with Lindsey and Stacey. It was like a one-piece bathing suit, cut high on her hips and with a dramatic neckline that came down to her belly button. It was a soft yellow, all sheer lace, and didn’t hide much of anything behind the pretty embroidery. Moira might have been flat-chested, but her breasts still looked amazing as her nipples poked against the sheer cup panels of the garment, and at the same time her mound looked so inviting behind the barely opaque cover hugging her little bush and lips.

She bit her lip playfully, looking up at me with a smile in her eyes.

“Like what you see?” she asked.

“You’re so fucking stunning,” I said, shaking my head in wonder. “I just want to remember this moment and am trying to burn it into my brain.”

She grinned again and hummed her happy chuckle, reaching her hands to take mine. “You just want to remember this moment?” she asked.

“Every moment from when you opened the door,” I said, squeezing her fingers lightly with mine.

“Kiss me?” she asked, tugging me down to her.

I lowered down, getting my knee up on the bed between her legs as I covered her body with my own and kissed her. She was hungry for it, even more than in the hall, and we made out for a long few minutes like that. Our hands wandered, hers trailing over my bare chest and up into my hair, then down my arms. Mine held her face at first, cradling her intently, then slid down her sides and felt the texture of the lace lingerie over her firm, smooth skin, and then I brought them up her stomach to her chest to trace around the bumps of her nipples.

“Mmm, Jerry,” Moira moaned softly.

“Moira,” I sighed happily, trailing kisses from her chin and up her jawline. Then I picked her up, one arm behind her shoulder and the other at the small of her back, and she gasped as I hauled us further onto the bed and then turned her sideways and laid down facing her on my side so we were looking at each other.

“Not what I thought you were going to do,” she said with a little smirk.

“I just want to… touch base,” I said as I brought my hand up to brush her hair from her face and behind her ear. She reached up and took that hand, holding it to her cheek.

“Are you worried about doing this without your girlfriends?” she asked, a little concern in her eyes.

“No, no,” I shook my head. “Not that. I just want to make sure I know what you want, Moira. From this. I want to- Well, let’s just say I want a lot of different things. You make me hungry for you. I want to fuck you like we’re animals, but I also want to make love to you. Or anything in between. And I really don’t want to have to guess what you want, so I’m just asking you. What kind of sex do you want tonight?”

“Jesus,” Moira sighed. “Um- That’s- I don’t think anyone’s just asked me that before. Sex was just sort of… how it happened.”

“Well, that’s how it is most of the time with my girls,” I said. “But that’s because we already know our likes and dislikes, and can read each other’s moods. But with someone I’m not so familiar with yet I don’t want to make assumptions.”

She smiled a little. “Yet?”

“Yet, I hope,” I said with a little smile back, leaning in and kissing her on the tip of her nose.

She sighed, resting her head on the mattress and looking at me. “What did the last woman who you asked say to that question?”

It was my turn to sigh, blowing my breath out through the corner of my mouth so I wasn’t blowing it at her. “We’d already discussed certain things beforehand,” I said. “But I still asked before we started. She, ah, well we were going to do anal for the first time for her, which was very special of her to want that with me. Before we really got started though she told me she wanted me to be aggressive, based on our previous experience together. She didn’t want to be submissive, necessarily, but she didn’t want to be the one in control either. It’s sort of a… fuckbuddy situation now, but with her wanting me to be ‘in charge’ while still being equal.”

“Sounds… complicated,” Moira said.

“A little, but it’s more like trying to put definitions on how we naturally fit together,” I said. “With a few clarifications based on the relationship expanding to include sexual wants.”

Moire nodded slowly. “And how would you define our ‘natural fit?’” she asked.

I shook my head, smirking just a little. “That’s a dangerous question for me to answer,” I said.

“Try,” she urged me.

After a breath, I nodded. “I think we have a natural chemistry neither of us can deny, and after the last time we were together there’s a strong sexual tension. I loved every minute of last time, but it’s a little harder to judge since it was a foursome. I think I… I think I want to rain love on you until you're comfortable, Moira. I don’t know if we’ll know our real natural state until you’re as sure about us working as I am.”

“Fuck,” she sighed softly, letting out a long breath. “Fuck, Jeremiah. That’s like- That’s the most emotionally deep, attentive thing I think a man has ever said to me. And it makes me kinda mad because I want to tell you off for saying I don’t feel safe, but then I know that’s a defensive reaction to feeling vulnerable.”

“I’m sorry,” I said softly, rubbing my thumb over the peak of her cheekbone as I continued to gently hold her cheek with my palm.

“Is this how you get girls to fall in love with you?” she asked.

“Maybe,” I said with a short chuckle. “I- Maybe I’m overstepping, but the idea of falling for you is really attractive, Moira. But we’re not there yet, and I don’t know if what I’m offering is what you would really want long-term.”

“You mean joining your polyamorous fuck-lationship?” she asked with a little smile.

“Yes, that,” I laughed. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking you’re astoundingly emotionally attentive and mature,” she said. “And I think the only way you got that way is by being friends, and lovers, with multiple women who don’t baby you. If Lauren is anything like Lindsey and Stacey, I guess it’s not surprising.”

“She’s been my best friend since we were kids,” I said. “And she’s never let me get away with shit.”

“Good,” Moira said and then sighed. “I think I just want to feel close to you tonight.”

‘We can cuddle,” I nodded.

“No, not cuddling,” she chuckled. “I want to feel close to you emotionally while you’re inside me, to be clear. Maybe not ‘making love,’ but also not ‘animal sex.’ Think we can do that?”

“Absolutely,” I said and leaned in with my whole body, kissing her deeply. Our tongues were quickly teasing each other and soon we were fully making out. I rolled back on top of her for a bit and she grinned into our kisses as our hands wandered lower, groping each other over our underwear. Then I rolled us again, and she was on top with her little chest pressed to mine.

I slid one hand up her back to her neck, softly gathering her pixie-cut waves at the back of her head and holding them there. My other hand scooped inside the plunging neckline of her lingerie bodysuit, finally getting skin-to-skin contact with her chest as I teased and pinched her puffy little areola and nipple. At the same time, Moira got a little more aggressive with her groping, basically jacking me off from outside of my briefs.

When she pulled away from our kissing we were both left gasping a little, but rather than sitting up she slithered down my body, sitting on her butt between my legs as she grabbed the waistband of my briefs and pulled them down far enough to let my cock pop out fully erect. She pulled the elastic waistband down to scoop under my balls, staying in place.

“Mmm,” she hummed, looking at my cock with big eyes before she looked up to meet my gaze and smiled wide enough that she was squinting a little. “Remember that first time when they had me suck you?”

“I was a little shocked you were going along with their conniving,” I said. “But very, very happy. Just like right now.”

She gently ran her fingertips along my shaft with both hands, teasing me. “I was a little surprised myself,” she admitted. “But after hearing all the scandalous stuff you three were talking about at dinner, I was curious. And then Stacey put the moves on me while Lindsey went to work on you in the bedroom.” Moira shifted back a little more, going to her knees and slowly leaning forward and down, bringing her face closer to my cock as her ass naturally raised in the air behind her. “I’ve been thinking about doing this some more,” she said softly with a bit of playful energy in her eyes. “You three treated me to things I’d never experienced before. I doubt I can give you a new experience, but I can definitely lavish some attention on you, Jerry.”

Moira kept eye contact with me around my cock as she leaned down the last little way and lapped her tongue across my smooth ballsack. I’d managed my pubic hair magically, not wanting to go somewhere to get myself cleaned up down there and also not wanting to ask the girls to do it, and most of my girlfriends had given my balls attention before. It was a thrill having Moira do it though, her small tongue teasing over my sack as she kissed each ball. She also took my shaft more firmly in one hand, gently massaging it and pulling slightly to one side so we could keep watching each other.

I groaned in pleasure as she softly sucked one ball into her mouth, then came off of it with a smile and did the same to the other.

“Do you like that?” she asked teasingly.

“I do,” I grunted.

“Good,” she said with a little smirk and went back to them, swapping back and forth between my testicles as she massaged them with her lips.

“Fuck, your ass looks great like that,” I sighed, running my fingers through her hair as we stared at each other.

She grinned, wiggling her slight hips teasingly, and then licked up from my balls to the underside of my shaft using the stiff point of her tongue, trailing it up the underside until she flicked it off the end of my cock and touched her upper lip with her tongue as she smiled. “Hold my hair back, Jerry,” she said. “I’m going to suck you now.”

I gathered her hair much as I had before, one hand holding it to the back and side of her head except for a bundle of strands that fell from her forehead. She gripped my cock at the base to hold it still and started treating the head of my cock like an ice cream cone.

Moira wasn’t looking to rush. She didn’t want to just do it and move on to something else. She wasn’t always looking up into my eyes, but I could see that she was exploring whenever she did. She was trying to learn what I liked, and what really sent chills through me, as she lashed me with her lips and tongue. And I let her know what did with my moans and groans. She bobbed on my cock, taking about two-thirds of it into her mouth as she sucked and slurped. She came off and ran her tongue around the ridge of the head and teased the top. 

She made oral love to my cock, smiling the whole time.

“Stop,” I finally groaned and then laughed. “I tap out. If you keep going I’ll come.”

She came away from my cock with her mouth, grinning and raising her eyebrows teasingly as she slowly stroked the bottom half of the shaft with her hand. “I got you that close?” she asked.

“I’ve been fighting it for a couple of minutes,” I chuckled, taking a deep breath. I could technically hold my orgasm for as long as I wanted with just a mental touch to my pool of magic, but that felt… wrong. Moira didn’t know what I could do, so it kind of felt like pulling one over on her and I didn’t want to do that.

She smiled and nodded, then bit the corner of her lip as she sat up higher on her knees, still stroking me. “You weren’t lying to me about your vasectomy, right?” she asked.

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I wouldn’t ever do that.”

“OK,” she grinned as she pulled my briefs the rest of the way off of me and dropped them off the side of the bed. Then she started to turn around on her knees until her ass was facing me and pulled the gusset of her lingerie one-piece aside and showed me her pretty pussy and a hint of her butthole peeking out from between her small buttcheeks. Again I was struck at how her pussy was different from the other women I was having sex with - she was lippy, her inner labia prominent and making a small flower of her sex. She shifted a little, getting closer as we figured out our leg positions so that mine were outside and slightly over hers.

She sat up, reaching back with one hand to scoop my cock into position at her pussy, and she started to sit down on it with a soft, girlish groan.

The thing was, she was tight.

Too tight.

“Ungh,” she gasped out, sitting back up a little. Just a fraction of an inch, really, but my cock still slipped from between her pussy lips and slapped down against my stomach because I was so hard.

“Need a little help?” I asked.

She looked over her shoulder and grinned at me a little embarrassed but nodded and went to her hands so that her butt was pushed right at me as she spread her knees a little more and arched her back a bit. This pushed her pussy towards me and also spread her cheeks a bit, giving me a wide-open view of each.

“God, that’s a beautiful sight,” I sighed as I traced a thumb over her labia. She was already a little slick, and her pussy felt warm to the touch.

“Fuck, Jerry, that feels good,” she groaned. “Don’t tease me though. Get me ready for that cock.”

I sat up a little and went to work. I didn’t not tease her, but I also quickly had one finger inside of her. That transitioned to my thumb slowly fucking into her as I used my forefingers to brush back and forth over her clit hood while I used my other hand to massage and lightly spank her butt.

Moira’s moans didn’t get any louder, if anything they got softer as she got more turned on. I could only catch parts of what she was murmuring as I slowly fucked her pussy with my thumb, but the soft and breathy noises were beautiful.

Finally, she pulled away with a gentle hum, reaching to grab my cock and get it back into position. She sat up, pressing herself about halfway down as I groaned at the delicious feeling of being inside of her.

“Hold on,” she said, pulling back off of me and turning on her knees. She pulled the shoulders of her lingerie off and then slipped it down over her torso and hips, baring herself to me and tossing it off the side of the bed. Then, fully naked, she mounted up facing me. “I want to see you.”

“God, I love your eyes,” I said, looking deep into them. Their pale blue was gentle and intoxicating.

Moira sat down onto my cock, working her hips lightly to drive herself further onto it, while I supported her with a hand scooped under her one buttcheek and the other palming her chest as she leaned towards me. Her nipples were little rubbery nubs and as she settled down with me fully inside of her a teased one with a couple of fingers.

“So good,” she whimpered lightly.

“So good,” I agreed.

She started to bounce on my cock - not fast or hard, but not at a leisurely pace either. It was… well, it was intimate. We kissed, and our hands groped and felt each other up. I craned my neck to get my lips on her nipples for a bit, and she held me there with both hands as she ground on me with her hips. Then she leaned back, giving me a better view of her puffy little blonde bush and her pretty pussy lips as my cock slid in and out of her.

I ran my hands up her sides, marvelling at how she felt so sturdy while also being so thin and delicate. She really did put in a big effort to keep herself as fit as she was, and it paid off for her.

My thumb on her clit as she rode me brought Moira closer and closer to orgasm until she boiled over, her whimpering murmurs ending in a sharp gasp as she stilled on my cock and then let out a long exhale.

“Mmm, that looked like a good one,” I said, leaving her clit and sliding my hand up her stomach.

“It was,” she said with a grin. Then she smiled a little more warmly as she focused on me again. “I want you to fuck me now. Like last time.”

“We did it a few ways last time,” I reminded her, flexing my cock a little since we’d stopped moving.

“Mmm,” she groaned softly. “I mean like… harder. That was really good. You even got me to squirt a little.”

“Gladly,” I said, sitting up and scooping my arms behind her back to pull her towards me so that she was pretty much sitting in my lap and I could kiss her. “Missionary again?”

She nodded through our kissing, but it took us a few minutes of making out for her to finally pull away and pull off of my cock. Rather than getting down into position though she got onto her hands and knees and sucked my cock into her mouth, tasting herself and my precum as she blew me.

I groaned thickly, feeling the pleasure rolling up my spine and aching in my balls, and slid my hands up and down her sides before reaching further and grabbing her ass. It was so cute, but also sexy, and I clapped both hands down onto it lightly and massaged her cheeks as she sucked me.

Once she must have gotten all of her taste off of my cock, she pulled away and rolled onto her back, lifting her knees and spreading them open to invite me in.

“Yesss,” she hissed gently as I entered her, and I gave us about thirty seconds to get into the new rhythm and groove of the position before I started to ramp up the pace. Soon I was fucking her at a strong clip and she had one leg hooked over my waist. Moira fucked back at me as best she could in the position, and that effort made even her flat chest bounce just a little with the movement, which was utterly sexy. I leaned in and kissed her hungrily, then left her lips to suck on each nipple for a moment as they stood proudly from her chest.

“Gawd,” she breathed out. “Gawd, fuck, Jerry. You’re so good. So good.”

“Moira,” I gasped, matching her intensity as she looked at me with almost a glare and got that feral smile on her face as we fucked each other. I had both my hands on her waist, pulling her to me with every thrust, our bodies coming together hard enough to clap the back of her thighs to my pelvis.

“I’m- I’m-” she whimpered, and her eyes rolled up a little as she rolled into an orgasm, her back arching as she sucked in a long breath. I shoved my cock as deep into her as I could get through her clenching pussy and let her ride it out, soft little squeaks of pleasure echoing out from her chest until she relaxed, blinking as she focused those pretty, pale blue eyes on me again. “Did I- Did I squirt again?” she asked.

“No, darling,” I said, rubbing my hands up and down her sides. “Are you hoping to?”

She bit her lip and looked at me. “I, um, I’d never done it with a guy before,” she said. “Only when getting myself off after being really turned on. So I was wondering if it was a one-time thing.”

I cocked an eyebrow and smirked a little. “Should we try to make it happen again?”

Moira grinned and nodded.

It didn’t really take long. A shift of my entry angle into her, a hand pressed to her abdomen, and I found her g-spot with my cockhead. I was basically holding her mound with one flat hand and grabbing her buttcheek with my other as I fucked her quick and firm.

When she came, the third time that night, her pussy released a little arcing stream of girlcum that spattered against my stomach as she panted and her ass clenched. It was the strongest orgasm yet, and took her a couple of minutes to really come around the other side of.

“How have you not come yet?” was the first thing she asked me, still breathing deeply.

“Practice,” I said. I was a little surprised myself, to be honest. I wasn’t using my pool of power to extend my stamina. I was just so focused on her that I was managing it.

“Can I suck it out of you?” she asked. “Last time you put two in my pussy, and it felt- well, it felt amazing, but I want to do that.”

I laughed and sat back, and Moira resumed her position between my legs just like she’d started out the encounter. Soon my cock was in her mouth and she was moaning and watching me with big eyes as she brought me closer and closer to orgasm.

“Almost,” I told her.

She licked her way off my cock and looked at me, holding it at her lips like it was a microphone. “Want me to swallow your big load, darling, or do you want to put it all over my face?”

“I didn’t think you’d be the kind of woman who would want a facial,” I said, just a little agonized by the delay in the orgasm as she used both hands to squeeze and massage my cock.

“I’ve never done it before,” she admitted. “But for sex like this… well, you make me feel like a slut in the best way possible, Jerry. Not dirty, not used, just a gorgeous sexual being. So why not try out looking like your slut with your warm, fresh cum all over my face?”

“How about we do that next time,” I said. “When one of the girls is here to lick it off of you before it gets nasty?”

She bit her lip, flushing just a little, and nodded. “Then I’m drinking it all down,” she said and quickly sucked my cock between her lips again.

My release revived quickly and I rang my fingers through the hair on top of her head before grabbing on lightly, holding her still as I gently thrust my cock between her lips with each hard, rolling release of orgasm. I dropped my six thick spurts into her mouth and all over her tongue and Moira swallowed each one as it came, humming around my cock head as she did it. The feeling was loving but powerful, each wave of pleasure making me feel like a million bucks.

And when it was over, and my orgasm trailed off, and Moira had swallowed the last of it from her mouth, I sat up and pulled her up to be level with me before I laid us down on our sides and spooned her, crushing her to me with both arms. She wriggled back against me, my half-hard cock pressed to her buttcheek, and she hugged my arms around her.

“Thank you,” I said. “That was amazing.”

“You’re amazing,” she said softly, her smile audible even if I couldn’t see it.

We laid like that, basking in the heat of each other, in quiet comfort for longer than I could guess. It was a little strange - I’d gotten so used to Stacey in my arms at night over the holidays, let alone nights where I had multiple of my girlfriends with me, but Moira was a sort of different feeling. She was so slim, yet felt familiar.

Eventually, the bit of sweat and squirt we’d developed during the sex started to get cold and clammy under us, and she turned in my arms and kissed my nose as she looked into my eyes. “We should go shower,” she sighed.

“That sounds great,” I said, letting out a breath.

“Maybe… like last time,” she grinned a little.

Last time we’d had sex at the penthouse and I’d put a load into her. I was more than happy to make a repeat performance of that. “Let’s go,” I said.

We separated and Moira climbed over me to get off the bed in the direction of the door and the en suite connected to her master bedroom. I gave her butt a squeeze on the way, and she smirked at me a little bit as she stood up and stretched almost like a cat, her whole body lithe and her ribs showing in a prominent but healthy way.

“God, I can’t believe you’re that good at sex for a guy who’s like a decade younger than me,” she said as she shook out her hair. “Practice does make perfect, I guess.” Then she saw my hesitation, and hesitated herself.

She was a little over thirty, which meant she thought I was a little over twenty if she thought I was a decade younger.

She didn’t know I was eighteen.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Um, nothing,” I said, slowly sitting up and swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. “Or, I don’t think so, but… I think there’s been a bit of a miscommunication. I don’t think I’m a decade younger than you, Moira.”

She smirked a little, raising an eyebrow. “Jerry, I know you said you’d try to make me feel better about the age gap here, but I’m not pretending to be younger to do it.”

“No, I mean-” I said but stopped. “How old do you think I am, darling?”

“Well, I thought you were 21 with the way the girls were talking, but are you just a really young, like, 25?”

I worked my jaw for a moment. “Um,” I said. “I-”

“Oh, God,” Moira said, her eyes going wide.

“Moira, Stacey is twenty, Lindsey is twenty-one, and Lauren and I are both eighteen,” I said.

“Fffffuck,” Moira said, backing away from me. “I- What-”

“I’m sorry,” I said, standing up but not moving closer to her. “It feels obvious to me, but I guess from the outside it isn’t.”

“What- I sold you a Penthouse lease for millions of dollars,” she said. “How the hell…?”

Shit, I swore in my head. Shit, shit, shit!

“Exactly how we told you,” I said, feeling bad about lying but knowing the truth would not help things. “Moira, this doesn’t change anything about what we’ve been saying or doing. You know that, right?”

“Doesn’t it?” she asked. She looked around and then opened her closet, grabbing a robe from the back of the door and slipping it on. “You’re a teenager, Jeremiah. I slept with a teenager. Twice! God, I’m so fucking messed up!”

“No, you’re not,” I said, grabbing my briefs where she’d tossed them and putting them on. “You’re a gorgeous, amazing woman who has wants, and needs, and a life that deserves to be full. And I’m a guy that wants to help fill at least a little corner of that for you, and my girlfriends would love to do that too.”

“You’re eighteen, Jerry,” she said, her face looking a little pained as she pressed her back to the closet door as it shut. “Teen.”

“And nothing that happened between us is wrong,” I said. “I could go film porn tomorrow if I wanted and it would all be fine.”

“That’s less a commentary on how this is OK or not and more on our society,” Moira said. “You can’t even fucking drink.”

“But I can join the military,” I said. “I can vote. And I can sleep with any other adult that I consent to.”

“God,” Moira said, closing her eyes. “Please tell me you’ve graduated high school?”

I closed my mouth, knowing that the answer wouldn’t be helpful.

“Fuck,” Moira breathed out.

“This spring,” I told her.

“Which is why you and Lauren aren’t moving into the penthouse until the summer,” Moira said. “God. Fuck.” She bumped her head back against the door with a dull, soft thunk.

“I-” I started but stopped myself. Arguing wouldn’t help things either. “Moira, please look at me?”

It took a moment, but she opened those pretty pale blue eyes of hers and looked at me, her jaw clenched as she hugged herself, keeping her robe closed.

“I don’t want this to be the last time I see you,” I told her. “But I also don’t think I can say anything or show you anything that would help right now. So just- Do you want me to give you space for now, or do you want to try talking this out?”

She swallowed a little hard and took a breath. “Space,” she said. “I- Give me space.”

I stood slowly and nodded, hoping I was keeping the hurt off my face. “I’m sorry, Moira,” I said. “I- God, just… just know I wish I could hug and kiss you right now, but I know trying that would be wrong.” I slowly skirted around her, trying to give her space rather than approaching her, and went to the door. My pants were closest in the hallway and I grabbed them from the floor, starting to put them on.

“Jerry,” Moira said from behind me.

I turned to look at her, one leg in my pants, and she was leaning in the doorway to the bedroom.

“You make it hard to be mad at you with your maturity,” she said.

“Can I call you in, like, three days?” I asked. “If you don’t call me first?”

Moira hesitated and then nodded.

“OK,” I said, then hesitated but didn’t say anything else. There wasn’t much else to say. I got my pants on all the way and headed for the stairs, turning back at the top to see Moira still in the doorway. “I had a blast on our date, Moira,” I said. “Any time I spend with you is worth so much more than just the price of a meal. I’m sorry this is how the night’s ending. Good night.”

“Good night,” she said softly.

I went downstairs, found my shirt and slipped it on, then my coat and shoes, and left her house.

**---*---**

“Fuuuuck,” Lindsey sighed.

I’d gotten home, avoiding Victorious’s questions as he drove, and had found out Lindsey was the only person in the penthouse. Lauren and Stacey had gone out in the early evening and bought Leandro some basic necessities - some clothes, men’s soap and other toiletries for the guest bathroom - and now that he had a set of workout clothes they’d brought him down to the gym in the building to try out the equipment there.

Lindsey had begged off, and when I walked in she’d been sitting on the couch working in a notebook. One look at my face had her up and in my arms, squeezing me tightly, but she hadn’t let me say anything until we each had a bowl of ice cream and were sitting on the couch. I’d told her briefly about dinner, and the sex knowing she would want at least some details, but focused mostly on the very end of the date.

“Yeah,” I sighed, taking another bite of my ice cream. “That about sums up how I feel about it.”

“I’m sorry, Jerry,” Lindsey said. She was already cuddling up next to me, leaning her head on my shoulder, but she shifted so she could hug me and give me a kiss on the cheek. “I’m guessing a quick rewind on the conversation wasn’t feeling too ethical?”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t an emergency, it just sucked.”

She nodded, moving back to lean her head against my shoulder and taking a big breath. “She’ll come around,” Lindsey said.

“I really don’t know, Linds,” I said. “It is a big age gap. Closer to fifteen than ten.”

“So what?” Lindsey replied. “If we can figure out everything we need to for stopping our aging, what’s ten years fifty years from now? Or a hundred?”

“But she doesn’t know about that, and I’m not springing it on her until…”

“Until you love her,” Lindsey filled in for me.

‘Yeah,” I sighed.

“Which you don’t yet. But you could,” Lindsey said.

“Yeah,” I said again.

“I’ll talk to her,” Lindsey said.

“Linds, the point is to give her space to think things through.”

“And that’s the right move, but too much space will have her spinning in her own head. I’ll talk to her on Monday. That gives her tonight and tomorrow to stew on things before I give her the chance to ask questions and get info without it being from you.”

It sounded reasonable as hell when I took more than a split second to consider it, so I nodded. “Thanks, Lindsey,” I said, shifting so I could get my arm around her and hug her. “I love you, and you’re still the smartest person I know.”

“Thank you, baby,” she said, turning a little under my arm so she was hugging me. She was only wearing one of my T-shirts (apparently stolen from my closet at home at some point) and a pair of cotton shorts so I could feel her unsupported breasts against me. She didn’t push for anything sexual though, and instead traced a finger along the skin under my shirt collar. “Speaking of being your Genius Girlfriend though, do you want to hear my ideas so far on the power farming?”

I took my last bite of ice cream and set my bowl aside as I nodded. “Let’s hear them,” I said.

“OK,” Lindsey said. “So we’ll start at the small end and work up, and I’m going to lay it all out because there are building blocks for the bigger stuff, OK?” I agreed, and she moved on. “The smallest end is what you can accomplish on an individual basis. We know that when you have sex with women for the first time there’s a big ‘first fuck’ bump, which I assume has to do with some sort of hypergamous-polygamous element where you generate more power by potentially reproducing with a wider number of women - that means that the more new women you have sex with, the better. But we also know that you get a better quality power input when you know and care about the people you have sex with; which makes me think that the essence of Fertility magic is more closely tied to a holistic reproduction cycle, which almost feels counterintuitive to the hypergamous-polygamous elements.”

“I’m sorry, Linds, but what is hypergamy?” I asked.

“Good question,” she said and kissed my shoulder as she continued to cuddle up to me. “That’s the idea of marriage or sexual relationships being decided based on strong societal markers - so most often wealth and status because those would generally lend themselves to better lives. Even throughout history in the few civilizations that had a trend of polygamy, it was almost always the wealthy and the powerful who could actually pull it off.”

“I wonder if some of those civilizations were copying other Fertility Seats and mirroring their lives,” I said.

“That’s very possibly true,” Lindsey said with a little smile. “Who said I’m the only genius in the room?”

“I am, Linds,” I said. “I’m just making stabs in the dark.”

“That’s most of what we’re all doing, Jerry,” she said. “Anyways, on an individual effort, the optimal sexual partner for you at any given time is a woman who you know and care about, but whom you haven’t had sex with before. We know that sex with a new woman you don’t know or care about still gives you a ‘new fuck’ bump, but the effort-reward ratio may not equal out compared to just spending time with the women you’re deeply caring for already. We also know that finishing inside a woman has a stronger quality than not, so you really should be finishing in us every time.”

“Oh, no,” I said with a bit of sarcasm. “You’ll all hate that.”

“Won’t we though?” Lindsey smirked. “So all of that comes together into a couple of points - you need to fuck the people you know. That means girls at school for the most part, especially ones you’re closer to. Lauren is already working on lists of who makes sense. It also means you should probably see if you have the hots for any of the teachers. Is Ms Bernelli still there?”

“She is,” I said, picturing the dark-haired Math teacher. She was always buttoned up tight, but tight in a sort of sexy way and not in an overly modest one. Sexy Librarian, not frumpy. “But she got married last year and goes by Mrs Chance now.”

“Damn,” Lindsey said. “I wouldn’t have minded hopping into bed with Bernelli. She was smoking hot and wicked smart. I bet she sucks cock like a vacuum cleaner.”

I snorted and shook my head.

“Any other teachers?” Lindsey asked.

I hesitated a moment. “Maybe,” I said. “Ms Morrison.”

“I’m pretty sure she’s married too, babe,” Lindsey said. “But good pick. She’s got those boobs.”

“She lost her husband,” I said. “Sometime late in the school year last year. She doesn’t talk about it, but she goes by ‘Miss’ now instead of Mrs.”

“Huh,” Lindsey frowned. “Well, that sucks for her, but maybe you could give her some fun and help her with whatever she’s feeling.”

I thought about how, when I’d been dealing with the ‘unfulfilled’ sex dreams early on after gaining my powers, she’d slipped through them. “Maybe,” I said. “It wouldn’t exactly be safe for her career-wise.”

“Which you can help fix if something ever did happen,” Lindsey pointed out. “Think of the big, glorious boobs, Jerry. And fucking your teacher.”

“Maybe,” I said, rolling my eyes. “What else have you got?”

“Right, so after what you can do, it’s a question of what other individuals could do - technically I don’t think it would be too hard to turn individuals into sex syphons where any sex they have filters power back to you. I’m thinking maybe a rune tattoo or something.”

“Jesus, Linds,” I said with a frown.

“Hey, this is all brainstorming. There aren’t any bad answers,” Lindsey said, poking me in the side gently. “Plus, you could run an ethical escort service or something. There’s plenty of women, and probably some men, out there that would be thrilled to have an organisation looking after them that also doesn’t mess with their money.”

“And let me guess,” I said. “All they need to do is get our company logo tattooed on their ass cheek, and sleep with me once?”

“Now you’re catching on,” Lindsey smirked a little. “But seriously, turning other people into sexual syphons is the only real idea I have under the ‘individual efforts’ category. The next step up is small-group, which would basically be repeating the methods we used for the New Year’s party but making sure it’s more sexual.”

“So you want me to host some orgies,” I said.

“Your word, not mine,” Lindsey said. “But yes, or at least parties where you facilitate inhibitions being lowered in a safe and ethical way. That or coopting other people’s sex parties for your purposes. That might be harder to accomplish though until you have an ‘in’ with people who have sex parties. The next stage up from that is more location-based and would be about identifying places where sex happens frequently and setting up permanent syphon runes to milk them. This would be like hotels, sex clubs and brothels, college dorms or frat and sorority houses. That kind of stuff. There’s also the potential that you could just scale the syphon up to cover a larger area, but I just don’t know if there’s a limit to the feasibility of that - like, you could potentially cover a whole city, or even just the majority of your territory, but what does scaling that look like? Can the runes remain small, or would they need to be bigger to compensate? And could someone mess with you if they know about a giant set of runes like that?”

I was nodding, absorbing her suggestions, and thought about what I’d felt during my glimpse at Ndia’s pool of power. It had been like dozens of trickling fountains all feeding into the core well - but was that because of risk or incapability, or because making bigger inputs just didn’t work?

“Those are almost all fairly passive ideas, though,” Lindsey continued. “Set it and forget it with the syphons, and scaling from individual to potentially societal. And passive income, from what I understand about the modern economy, is pretty great.  But since we want to be aggressive, I started looking at what we could do to industrialize this thing. Short of setting up and managing our own brothels or sex clubs - which I’m not ruling out - or turning you into a feudal dictator who everyone in the country has to sleep with, the big question I came up with was going back to what parts of the reproductive process generate magic. Since we know syphoning works, but we’re not looking to have you start fathering a whole bunch of babies, what if we opened up or took over a Fertility Clinic and turned it into the most successful one in the world? You, or whoever runs it, could use that Pregnancy Wand to prime women who want desperately to have children, and then we could have couples bang it out in a private room at the facility before we perform some more ‘tests.’ I don’t think it would take too long for the business to skyrocket if we can prove massive success rates and people would be coming to it from all over the world. Then, if the couple or woman is looking for a sperm donor, all of the sperm could be yours without having the guilt of fathering a child since they’ll be wanted and taken care of - or if you don’t find that ethical, we could see if we could turn the saved sperm from multiple donors into a syphon method itself. Maybe with runes on the containers, or the tools used to do the IVF-style implantation. And, if we can find out if that actual birth generates power, we could have a whole private Birthing Facility in the clinic too.”

“That’s a lot of If’s going on there,” I said.

“Maybe, but it’s worth looking into,” Lindsey said. “I mean, think about it, Jerry. You could be the face of the most popular business in America because you charge so little for helping people have healthy babies, all while undercutting the massive costs of IVF treatments that have such crappy chances at success. Plus you could start hiring people from the Ascended community and build a healthcare-based organization to work alongside Other Anna’s media empire.”

I looked into Lindsey’s eyes and fell in love with her all over again.

“Linds, I hope you know I’m never joking about you being a genius,” I said. “I mean it every time I say it. That- I keep worrying about how I might be hurting people with my decisions, or not fulfilling what I need to be doing. God, I- Yes, you’re right. I can’t fix every problem for people, but healthcare is such a good idea.”

“Jerry,” Lindsey said, reaching up and brushing the tears that had started falling down my cheeks. “Shhh, I know, baby. I know you’ve been worrying. You’re not failing, you’re just getting started.”

I sucked in a breath and nodded before letting it out. The wave of emotion - love, and hope, that had run through me was something I hadn’t been expecting and it had taken me by surprise. “OK,” I said and nodded again. “OK. You’re right. Where do you think we should start? Perfecting the syphons?”

Lindsey nodded. “The ones we used at your house were just a first implementable iteration,” she said. “There’s got to be some better ways to do runes that won’t require, like, five specific geographic placements. I wish I could do more practical research instead of just sort of blindly flailing around for philosophy and spiritualism stuff, but Esmerelda’s whole ‘magic for me and not for thee’ thing is sticking.”

“I might be able to get something soon as I meet with other magical groups,” I said. “But… Linds, I kind of think you don’t need other references.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, sitting up a little and frowning.

“I mean that we know the runes, or magic words, or hand movements, or whatever else aren’t needed for the spells, they just help focus the unreal into the real,” I said. “I think other Ascended and Seats might rely on runes more because it’s easier to trust something someone else came up with than to develop their own stuff philosophically. Figuring it out and trusting it is a lot harder than reading it in a book and trusting it.”

“So you’re saying I should just… bullshit my way through?” Lindsey asked with a smirk.

“I think you can come up with something comprehensive enough, and modular enough, that we can build off of it as we go,” I said. “And I’ll help. I need the magic to be a personal truth, and I can’t think of anyone better to dive into the connection between my head and my heart than you.”

“Jerry,” she said softly, her lower lip sticking out a little as she gave me lovey eyes and reached up to trace her fingers across my jaw.

“I love you,” I said softly.

“I love you too,” she whispered. “Forever.”

I leaned in a little and we kissed, soft and sweet.

“OK,” she said. “I’ll shift from trying to do research to reinventing the wheel. Any insights for me to start from?”

“I’ve had thoughts about the Unreal and the Real lately, and how the transition between the two states may be more thin than changing what is real into something else that’s real,” I said.

“Because that was easy to follow,” Lindsey smirked a little, raising an eyebrow.

I snorted softly and shook my head. “I know. What I mean is that there’s a sort of… I want to say a collective knowledge that we’ve built up as a society, or maybe as a species. A rock is a rock, and we all know that even if we know we can also turn a rock into something else by carving it or breaking it or crushing it. So if I want to do something to the rock, it’s easiest to do things that I know can be done. Throw the rock with my mind? Sure, I know a rock can be thrown. But what if I want to turn the rock into a plant? That doesn’t make sense, so it feels like it shouldn’t be real. But what if I take the idea of the rock into the unreal - well, it’s not a rock anymore. It’s the idea of a rock. And I can take that idea and change it in the unreal, like maybe it’s actually a seed, and I crack that seed open and it grows into an orange tree. Then I take the idea of the orange tree that came from a rock back out of the unreal and into the real, and I just have an orange tree and not a rock.”

“So then the main problem is doing that instinctively enough that it’s functional,” Lindsey said. “And believing that it’s possible.”

“Which is why I think I’ve been able to figure out spells so far by adding rules and restrictions to reduce power cost. The smaller and more simple I believe the task is, the easier it actually is.”

Lindsey blew out a breath. “Do or do not. There is no try.”

“Exactly,” I said, then kissed her forehead. “You’re a much cuter Yoda.”

“I dunno,” Lindsey said. “That little guy was pretty cute.” Then she shook her head and took a breath. “OK. So I need to do some work to figure out how to fit runes into where you’re basing your philosophy - the obvious answer is to make a runic concept that helps you with those restricting rules, but I could also maybe build a concept that helps break the need for those rules. And I should also look more into belief systems that feature transcendent awareness.”

Before I could answer, the lock on the apartment clunked open and Lauren and Stacey came in followed by Leandro. They stopped inside, the girls kicking off their gym shoes, and then they saw us on the couch.

“Shit,” Lauren said with a sigh.

“Aw, damn it,” Stacey said.

“Am I missing something?” Leandro asked.

“Come here, Jerry,” Lauren said, coming towards us and reaching out for my hands but looking at Lindsey. “How bad?”

“Seven out of ten, but salvageable,” Lindsey said. Then she hugged me a little tighter and kissed my cheek. “We’ll talk more.”

“Come on, dorkus,” Stacey said, coming over as well and grabbing one of my hands from Lauren and they both pulled me up from the couch. They both hugged me tightly, making me groan as their sweat soaked into my clothes and felt clammy on my skin. She snorted. “Come tell us in the shower.”

I was quickly pulled towards the master bedroom. Behind us I could hear Leandro ask Lindsey, “How did they know something was wrong?”

“Ice cream, Leandro,” Lindsey said as she tapped the bowls on the coffee table. “It’s always the ice cream.”

**---*---**

“Thanks, Anna,” I said.

“You are welcome, Jeremiah,” Anna said from the other end of the call. Her voice was warm and sent a bit of a tingle up my spine even though she was all the way across the world in Norway. Our afternoon together had been something else. “And thank you for the quotes,” she continued.

“You’re welcome,” I said. “See you sooner than later?”

“I would like that,” she replied. “Ha det.”

“Ha det,” I replied, saying goodbye in Norwegian, and then hung up with a sigh.

“That sounded good,” Lauren said. She was driving the minivan back home since I needed to have that call with Anna. “You should check for that document she sent.”

“I am,” I nodded, quickly opening up the email account that she and Lindsey had set up to handle the Judgement requests. “Looks like she sent it while we were talking,” I said. “Want me to go through it now?”

Lauren shook her head, glancing over at me as we cruised down the highway. “Actually, we should probably talk first?”

“OK,” I said, setting my phone in the cup holder. “What’s on your mind, other than everything?”

She smirked a little. “Says the biggest worrier of us all,” she countered.

“Fair,” I said. “But what’s up?”

We hadn’t left super early, but after a quick breakfast Lauren and I had needed to hit the road. It absolutely sucked leaving Stacey and Lindsey in the city for school, and Leandro being there had only been a bit of a help in terms of making sure they were safe. I still didn’t have full-fledged trust in him even if he’d sworn an oath that had been bound magically. I also hadn’t had a chance to get him the gear he might need to actually act as a bodyguard.

“Moira,” Lauren said.

That made me sigh again.

“I know, Jerry, but we really should talk about it,” Lauren said.

“I don’t know what else there is to say, Lauren,” I said. “It’s about the age gap, and maybe a bit of her feeling like either I was lying, or she was duping herself. All of those things are tough to accept.”

“But you didn’t even try, Jerry,” Lauren said. “You could have pushed harder to handle it in the moment.”

“How?” I asked. “How would I have cut through all the noise?”

It was Lauren’s turn to sigh. “You’re magic, you could have thought of something.”

“That’s not fair and you know it,” I said.

“I know!” Lauren grunted.

“What’s this really about?” I asked. “Lindsey is going to follow up with Moira, and we agreed to talk on Wednesday. And you haven’t even met Moira yet so you can’t tell me it’s because you think she fits in well.”

Lauren bit the inside of her cheek and glanced out the driver’s side window away from me for a moment, then focused forward. “It’s not fair that you can dance circles around me in conversations,” she grumbled.

“Are you kidding me?” I chuckled. “You do that to me all the time.”

She glanced at me and gave me a look that made me snort a little.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Things are going to be moving quickly,” she finally said. “We’ve got school, and you’re going to need to meet with all those magical groups, and we don’t know how fast Judgement requests are going to come in. And all that means there’s going to be a lot more magical people in your life soon, and-”

“And what?” I asked softly.

“And I’m worried that the more magical people are in your life, the more magical shit that you need to deal with on a daily basis, the more normal that world is going to seem and the faster we’re going to lose little pieces of how you are now. The Jeremiah who is… You’re a good guy, Jerry. And I’m not saying you won’t be, but we haven’t even been dating for a month and a half and I’m OK with everything that’s been happening with our relationships and sex and everything, but I don’t want to lose this time with you when we’re both so new to each other still. Romantically. Moira felt like another piece of the normal world you could hold onto.”

“Like an anchor?” I asked.

“Yes, like an anchor,” Lauren nodded. “Like someone who could keep you grounded. Lindsey can’t be that because she’s throwing herself into the magical stuff so fast and hard. Annalise, Aidra, even Jordan - they can’t do that. Angie will, but that’s just two people in our relationship.”

“What about you?” I asked. “Why can’t you be my anchor?”

“Because I’m your Prime,” Lauren sighed. “Because that’s what I’m supposed to be, but realistically I don’t think that’s enough because I’m tied to the magical stuff too. I sit in the Council chamber with you. If you get busy enough, I might be holding court or meeting with magical politicians or doing any other thing that you need me to because I have a title they have to respect. I can’t keep you grounded by myself because I’ll be floating off with you. And I’m scared of what we’ll be in fifty years. Or a hundred. Or a thousand. I don’t want to be Yaroslav and Anna. Or Ndia and Beno. I don’t want to be like any of them, I want to still be us.”

I had to sit with that for a moment, and I reached over and put my hand on Lauren’s knee and she dropped one of hers from the steering wheel to hold it here.

“I love you so fucking much, Jeremiah,” she whispered. “You’re my best friend, and my boyfriend, and the man I intend to spend the rest of forever with. I want to make sure you have every possible chance to stay who we are.”

It took me longer than I liked to realise that this had to have something to do with the letter that Ezekiel’s Prime Ophalia had left her. Lauren still hadn’t told me much of what had been in the letter, but it had made Lauren cry in a sorrowful way rather than a hurt one. I had to wonder again what Lauren had been told, or taught, that I hadn’t. Ezekiel’s letter had told me some stuff but had been light on a lot of details.

“OK,” I said. “I get it.”

“You do?” she asked.

“I do,” I said. “I need anchors. We need anchors. I don’t want us to lose ourselves either. We’re going to make hard, hard decisions in the future and I trust our morals and ethics now more than I do anyone else on the Council. And maybe they thought the same things when they Ascended - I don’t know. What I do know is that we can’t help the world without feeling like we’re part of it. So we can’t lose ourselves. Maybe Moira isn’t the right person. I kind of hope she is, but we can’t force it. But we’ll find other people. And not just potential harem members, Lauren. We need to make sure we have friends, and mentors, and… we need people. The right people.”

“Thank you, Jeremiah,” she said, and then cleared her throat. “Sorry I got really intense there.”

I lifted my hand from her leg, bringing hers across and leaning in to kiss it lightly. “You can be as intense as you want, whenever you want. Lady Prime.”

Lauren snorted and groaned as she rolled her eyes. “It sounds a lot better when Leandro says it. From you, it just sounds weird.”

“Get used to it, Lauren,” I said. “I’m about to make sure everyone knows I’m the King of this here kingdom, and you’re my Queen.”

“What happened to you being the Grand Poohbah?” Lauren asked.

“True,” I said. “Alright, I’m the Grand Poohbah, and you’re the…”

“No.”

“Glorious Blalahla,” I said.

“What?”

“Glorious Blalahla,” I repeated.

“Where the fuck did that come from?”

“My brain,” I laughed.

“I’m not going to be your Glorious Blalahla.”

“But I’m a Poobah! I have to have my Blalahla.”

“That’s not even a thing, Jerry!”

“You have offended your Grand Poohbah.”

Lauren snorted so hard she had to pull off the side of the road as she started giggling and slapping at my arm.