Chương 1026: Day One Thousand And Twenty-Four

Dear Diary, Kinda funny; I think for a long time now I've thought of myself as somehow less because a couple times now when Saffron has some kinda sneaky plan or secret weapon that isn't, y'know, me, she keeps me out of the loop. Like she's worried that somehow I'll let the cat out of the bag and fuck things up. I thought this because I am, as I have mentioned many times, a dumbass who doesn't remember the basic lessons in Opsec I learned in ROTC and on the streets.

Shit, there's even a whole assed maxim about that I'm sure I saw in one of my self-help books.

'Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead'. Which here and now isn't really accurate, given how Souls are a thing, and they seem to remember their lifetime or lifetimes really fuckin' well. So the only real way to keep something a secret is to not tell anybody who doesn't need to know.

Right at the moment, I know what I need to know, which is that Saffron has a plan, it's progressing and doesn't require my intervention, and when it does require the talents that Marie and I share, she will let us know with just enough time to get our asses in motion. The sad part is that I think she's genuinely guilty about that. Like, guilty that she hasn't shared everything with me. Which makes no fuckin' sense at all, since I didn't share the entire plan with her regarding the Liberation of Calverton.

Yeah, I worked with her on some of the Shapes I needed, and I told her the details the night before, but fundamentally I kept her in the dark. She didn't get the mushroom treatment, because I didn't feed her shit, but then she's not feeding me bullshit now either. Another parallel might be that just like she knew I had a plan then, I know she's got a plan now, and just like she knew the end result would be an Undead free Calverton, I know the end result of her plan will be no Maenad prisoners in Sparta.

On the one hand, I want to talk to her about that and make sure she knows she doesn't have to feel guilty about that any more than she would need to feel guilty about poking holes in me during an acupuncture session. On the other hand, even bringing that much up in front of her would be tempting fate. Yeah, I could Blend the living fuck out of us before we talk about it, but then whoever is watching would know we talked about something.

Honestly, I think when it comes to something like this, it's a little like cooking. Speaking of talents that Marie and I share, that's one of them, but us doing stuff in the kitchen is a lot like Saffron or I making Big Important Plans. Yeah, if I'm the one making the plan, I can delegate some part of it to her, but I need to be clear to her how she's gonna interact with the other parts of the plan, or at the very least include her parts of those bits as part of her goals. It's like cutting up carrots for stew.

If Marie's the one with the recipe in her head, and she needs carrots, she needs to tell me whether she needs them diced, cubed, julienned, or whatever, at which point I get the knife and carrots and hand her over the processed carrot when she calls for it. That's even more important when one of us isn't even working from a recipe, just making shit up as we go along. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

I don't think Saffron would really fly by the seat of her pants like that, but this is one of those things where there's definitely an 'enemy', so shit's gonna get fucked up before we even start, and she needs to be able to adjust things on the fly without me jostling her elbow. I get that, and I really need to make sure she knows that I do, so she doesn't do something sub-optimal because she feels guilty about me being out of the loop. Especially when the loop is probably her and her spies or whatever.

Speaking of kitchens and cooking, while I didn't really pay much attention to my bodyguarding or Siobhan sitting today, and I mostly focused on teaching the kids what I remembered about squares and square roots, I also had one of me in the kitchen with Marie. I'd asked her to teach me how to make her savory syrup gravy, and she had me working on that, but while I did that she wound up making some homemade squeaky cheese curds.

When she had those ready to go, while I'd made like two different batches of gravy and gotten both of them wrong, she started in on French fries. Not shoestring ones, not curly ones, and not boardwalk ones, although I think I might try some of those myself tomorrow, but those flat rectangular steak fries. Those weren't my favorite back in the day, but much like everything else Marie makes, they were incredible. I was a very good girl and did not eat them all before dinner.

I had one fry per batch, which given that each batch was at least a few dozen fries, wasn't terrible I don't think. At the beginning of the day, before I'd started on the syrup, she'd had me slice some bear steaks into strips after slicing off the tough bits, put a light sear on them, then put them into a crock to slow cook. Right before dinner she had me pull them out super carefully, dredge them through some flour, which wasn't easy without letting them fall apart, at which point she deep fried them.

So fuckin' extra in terms of how much work and painstaking effort it took. So worth it. So fuckin' worth it. Marie and I worked together on the plating, and my knuckles were a little sore from getting rapped with a spoon every time I tried to steal a second steak tendie, but we wound up filling bowls with fries and cheese, laying a few tendies atop that, then pouring the savory sweet gravy over top of it. Yeah, we had dinner early today.

Mostly because I begged, also because the sun's setting later and the kids were hungry. But I think it was mostly me making eyes at Marie while glancing at the food. Then she sat me down, sat in my lap, and said, "Open Wide." I am not stupid. I opened wide, my hands at my sides. She fed me tendies clutched in her fangs. Holy fuckballs, so good, I didn't even kiss her until the bowl was empty. I've heard the phrase 'food better than sex' before, but holy shit this was the real deal.

Didn't hurt that after each tendie consumed, she'd whisper in my ear.

"Good Girl." I think I need more days like this.