Chương 1013: Day One Thousand And Eleven

Dear Diary, Welp. Today was one of those days when life reminded me that no matter how many people you've got working together with the best of intentions, sometimes shit just does not go the way you planned. I mean, nothing went horribly, messily awry. Hell, I can't even say that anything specifically went wrong or badly, it just didn't turn out the way I planned. But I already kinda said that. Thing is, some days are like that.

I remember there's this line from the old Star Trek series where Professor X says 'it is possible to make no mistakes and still lose; that is not weakness, that is life'. Yeah, I read a lot and watched a lot of shit, but my main exposure to sci fi was anime, gaming, and memes. My point still stands, though, some days nothing goes really wrong, nothing blows up, nobody gets hurt, but nothing goes right, and nothing works out like you wanted it to, and the whole day can feel like a waste.

I think I'm learning that it's important on those days to just stay calm, learn what I can, and basically not turn a meh day into a bad day just because I'm not getting my way. That way lies shit pyramid, and if nothing else goes right, I'm hoping to at least flatten shit pyramid until nobody's neck deep or deeper in shit. Y'know, I think I say that a lot.

'if I only do one thing here'. Thing is, it's still true. I'm beginning to realize that all snark aside, I did not have a very good self-image when I arrived. Given how and where I grew up, that's not surprising, but I think I vastly underestimated how bad my own self-image was. Both in the sense of inaccuracy and in the sense of thinking I was worth less than an equal mass of runny irradiated manure. Like, not even good as fertilizer. Like I said, not surprising.

No dad, which given some of my friends' dads wasn't as bad as it could have been, but still left me with those feels that he'd have stayed if not for me, especially with him leaving before I hit the age my sister was at when I was born. Mom left me at home alone to work, which I now recognize was to take care of me once she died, but back then all I saw was the mom shaped hole in my life.

My sister, who always treated me like an afterthought, and when she did think about me showed me she had the same thoughts about why my dad left as I did; when my mom died, she blamed me for her death, blamed me for my behavior, which was shitty but in my defense I was thirteen, and subsequently blamed me for everything that went wrong in her life, most of which I had nothing to do with.

Yes, I shared the pictures she'd taken of her and her side piece with her boyfriend, but even now I'm gonna claim the tiniest bit of moral high ground. I don't deserve it, because I did it to hurt her, not because she was a two-timing bitch, but she still shouldn't have been sneaking around. Huh. Now I wonder if that's why I felt so weirded about dudes and not-Saffron-or-Marie for a while. At any rate, today was a nothing burger, hold the everything.

Started out yesterday, really, with me trying to remember how to do a quadratic equation. Or really, why you'd do a quadratic equation. I Co-Located to M-Space and scried on somebody searching for that shit, so the 'how' wasn't that hard to find, but the 'why' still puzzles me. Which meant I had the kids just memorizing shit, and that never goes well for most of them. I kinda wished we had the internet, a computer lab, and one of those fun math games sites by the end of the day.

Instead I stole an algebra textbook, realized it was way, way above their level, taught them the whole 'FOIL' thing, then had the older kids work with the younger ones on basic arithmetic. Got home to the fam and Clergy all settling in to dinner. Marie had tried... I think she intended it to be gazpacho soup. Okay, it probably was gazpacho soup, and Marie being Marie it was also probably good gazpacho soup, but while everybody ate it, everybody just kind of ate it.

Usually with any new Marie creation at least one person in our very extended family is all 'ten of ten, would nom again', but this time the best response was from Ria and Tallulah, who both did a kind of ritualistic, 'thank you for dinner, Marie' thing before we all went up to clean up. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. No Baths today.

Saffron apologized, but apparently the whole thing needed to be cleaned, and while Marie had it cleaned well before dinner time, apparently before noon even, the hot water tanks are nowhere near big enough to fill the whole thing, so the Bath was cold, and nobody was in the mood for a cold bath. Showers were still hot, though, so we scrubbed down then went to bed. Okay, we put the kids to bed, at which point I sort of realized that my Clergy were still there.

We all went back down to the Dining Room for after dinner drinks, but apparently the whole thing took Marie by surprise. She didn't have any of Tallulah's Hot Chocolate ready, or even enough chocolate for cocoa, and this was gonna be a work meeting, so nobody wanted to be plastered, which meant we got tea. Don't get me wrong, really good herbal tea, but tea isn't really my thing, and herb tea even less so. Then the meeting itself. Saffron looked around and started us off with, "I take it you ladies have news?"

Karen nodded, and at Saffron's gesture, said, "Each of us contacted the former Worshippers of Aphrodite who converted to Worship of Tabitha." She looked around, and the rest of them nodded.

"To the best of my knowledge, none of them are willing to bear witness to Agency violations by Aphrodite."

"Dafuq?" I didn't want to mess with Saffron's groove, but that took me totally by surprise.

"She better not be intimidating them." Karen shook her head, and seemed to be grasping for words, when Madeline cleared her throat.

"May I?" Karen nodded, looking grateful.

"Of course."

"The ones I spoke with were not afraid. Not really, and definitely not afraid of Aphrodite."

"What the fuck were they afraid of then?" Mads nodded as if to psych herself up.

"Themselves, I think. They're not really so much 'afraid', though, as much as 'guilty'. Like they feel as if they could have controlled themselves, but didn't really want to, so they don't hold Aphrodite responsible. Meanwhile they have, subconsciously, been doing exactly that, because if Aprhodite wasn't responsible for some of the things they did, then they were, and I suspect some of what they did ranged out of the 'esoteric, for those with refined tastes', and well past the line of 'perverted'."

That took me off guard.

"Uh, are we still talking about the R word here? Sex without Consent?" Mads shook her head.

"No, Goddess. Not by their estimation, since they feel they Consented."

"Explicitly?" She shrugged.

"Even now some of the congregation prefer some degree of subtlety or discretion. While we've tried to encourage openness, some of them are still learning to accept that Passion is to be accepted and Ecstasy pursued. So instead of spoken questions and answers, sometimes Consent is asked for with glances and given with nods." I frowned, trying not to growl or snap.

Not the fault of my Worshippers that while here and now wasn't as prudish as back in the day, they still weren't as open as me and my ladies had learned to be. Baby steps. I sighed.

"Okay. So, what, they're just all copacetic with Aphrodite using them like tube socks?" I had to avoid laughing as all my Clergy head tilted at that. Apparently here and now tube socks aren't really a thing, I guess, which means they aren't used for the other use by guys, either. Eventually we shifted up to the Bedroom, not for fun times, but just because the seating was nicer. Each of the ladies went over everyone they'd talked to.

We talked for minutes, for moments, for months, and eventually when the sun wasn't too far from coming up, I raised my hand.

"Okay, ladies. So no good news on the 'people willing to say Aphrodite touched them inappropriately'. Any luck on the legal front?" Saffron shook her head.

"Tallulah, Karen, and I are all still looking, love. It may be a bit." I sighed.

"Okay. It'll just take time." I turned to Karen.

"In the meanwhile, make sure we're not actually torturing her by keeping her in the oubliette?"

"Of course, Goddess." We gathered up for a kind of group hug at dawn, at which point everybody broke up for their busy days of work. In my case, that meant teaching Cadets from Camden Yards how to play Squadball with lancasters. There were an unfortunate number of broken noses. The only reason my own wasn't included was my stolen defenses, and I still wound up with a black eye. Like I said, nothing horribly wrong, but nothing right, either.