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I feel bad about not remembering all the details about the wedding ceremony, and I just can't go to Iselin with this, so I knock on Kari's door and walk in when she shout to just come in, only to be greeted by:
"Cia... NO! Don't look! Out! Robert out! Don't look!"
I just close the door and sigh. Shit.
Maybe I should have said it was me, but Kari didn't ask, obviously thinking it was Ciara. Who I see coming towards me with needle and thread. Shit. I can't un-see that. Kari standing there in a corset, eyes wide from panic, with Jane who seemed to be helping her with something. I just give Ciara a kiss on her cheek as we pass and go back to my workshop. Considering I've never heard anything about a corset, I'm guessing Kari didn't want me to see it yet. However, that is another thing to add to the growing list of things I have to make sure that future women blames Jane for.
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Lead acid battery cells is something that Iselin, Kari, Asta and Caecilia already learned to build and maintain, and we will build a few wind turbines for the other mansions and the ship, but I have been putting it aside because it needs a rectifier to stop the current feeding back from the battery to the wind turbine. Sure, there is ways around that, but no good one as far as I can see, and I really want to be able to rectify alternating current, so ideally I need diodes. Fairly powerful high current diodes. I don't want to try to experiment with Mercury Arc Rectifiers unless I absolutely have to, so for now my only other option is copper oxide semiconductors because I know that was a thing.
In order for that to work, I have to make pure copper, purer than they have. Which should be relatively easy as I don't even have to make a copper solution because it is possible to buy 'blue vitriol', i.e. copper sulphate. Anyone who have etched their own circuit boards and actually read the safety stuff knows what that is. So I take a jar and suspend a copper wire as the cathode, and a big piece of copper to be consume as the anode. Then I fill up the jar with blue vitriol and connect it to the battery bank via a simple adjustable resistor. Bubbling by the anode is a sign that it is working, so I make a another jar to increase the produce rate of pure copper. This will take some time, but when the cathodes have eventually accumulated enough pure copper, I can melt that copper to plates to use for semiconductor experiments. I assume it will take tweaking to get it right.
To produce the important copper oxide layer, as far as I know there are two methods, and I don't know which one is most practical for any kind of 'mass production' here, so I will try both electrolysis and use a high temperature furnace to try to build up a red oxide layer on copper with temperature. That will absolutely take a lot of tweaking and experimentation.
While the jars are quietly bubbling, I take out the pieces of my scrapped DSLR camera and start sketching on paper and drawing the electric circuits. I have no regret at all that I scrapped my own cheaper DSLR camera. Of course there are a lot of components I can't use like all these semiconductor ICs. I can also only partially follow the traces on the circuit boards and there are limited test of components, and it mainly works for simpler components like resistors, capacitors, diodes, transistors and voltage regulation circuits, so for now I will ignore much of the circuit boards. But there are so many precious little springs, electric motors, electromagnets, photo mechanisms, buttons, short tiny cables and connectors, and they are more than worth their weight in gold. I have toyed with its built-in electric flash and it will become its own 'something', once I figure out what to do with it. I have the external good flash accessory for the other camera, and parts in that ring flash. Unfortunately, I have no wiring diagram for my DSLR camera, although I've already taken it apart a couple of years ago to fix a shutter blade issue, and cleaned it after an unplanned quick dunk in a Norwegian mountain stream. Damn big rocks that isn't stable, and bags that aren't completely waterproof. At least that made me learn that taking of shoes, socks and maybe pants and wade is the safer option. Even in freezing cold water. If I can bathe during winter, I can absolutely wade through knee high water any time of the year.
I check over the inventory list of components. I have three dual op-amp IC (operational amplifier) that I've deliberately have not used for anything yet, because they can be used for so much and I haven't needed them yet. I agonize over each component used, because every single one is special. In many cases that is literally the only one in this entire world. They cannot be replaced. Then many are hard to unsolder, especially IC's. But at least one op-amp will be used for a more advanced multimeter. I've already made several moving coil instruments, and making a simple basic current or voltage meter is easy because it's just a matter of the right resistor solution. The multimeter I really want to build have more complex selections and larger range, and the op-amp helps amplify the signal and make that possible.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Kari enters the workshop, closes the door behind her, and she is clearly unhappy and disappointed as she sits down on the sofa. So of course I put my work aside and hold out my arms, and Kari rise and seek my embrace. I give her a hug and feel what I assume is the corset underneath her dress. Kari sits in my lap and dejectedly explain that she got the corset made in Borgarsandr, after Jane told her about them. She have been wearing it the last two weeks, gradually increasing the time she wears the corset and lacing according to Jane's advice. She loves how the corset feels and wants to wear it longer, but she have time and follows Jane's advice. No one but Jane have known about it, although several probably suspects something. She wanted to surprise me when she got really used to it. But she needed Ciara's help to tweak a thing and fix a couple of stitches that have become undone, and Ciara was just getting the right thread and needle. She didn't expect me to knock on her door, and now the surprise is ruined.
I just kiss Kari and say that the surprise isn't ruined; I just saw her silhouette as she had the sunlight from the windows behind her - which isn't really true but I can pretend for her sake - and suggest she can do a real presentation for me tonight. Something extra special. Maybe combine with other things in glass or ceramic, and I let my hands slowly wander on her body as I talk, and Kari gets happier and starts to get excited. If the corset is comfortable enough, she can wear it for the rest of the afternoon and maybe during supper, and sit there with it at the dining room table. Feel it against her body. Maybe with her butt plug so she feels more disobedient and have prepared herself.
Slowly and seductively I continue to describe how I think she feels according to what she have said before, and the things I know she likes, and I mix whispers with kisses on her neck and shoulder. The feeling of pressure, and tight fabric. That we will know but no one else, and that she has to control herself in front of the others. I calmly adjust Kari a little more forward so that she sits crookedly on my lap, kiss her neck and methodically but slowly slide a hand down her neckline and caress her breast while I describe things I know she like to hear - this is not the first time. I reach away and discreetly take one of the towels, and place it on the workbench.
Kari doesn't notice; she have closed her eyes, lost in her fantasy with her head slightly tilted back, taking quick breaths as I gently continue massaging her nipple with a couple of fingers. I take a leather glove I use for soldering or hot glass, fold it so the clean side is out and command Kari to open her mouth, and I place the glove in her mouth. I slowly start to pull her skirt up and just a feather light touch makes Kari willingly spreads her legs. I carefully place the towel under and between her legs before my thumb and fingers explore the spot between her legs. It's doesn't take many minutes before the towel is used and my hand is squeezed hard while Kari bites down on the glove and moans.
When Kari regains control and calms down, I remind her that I have not given her my permission and she has been 'disobedient', so half an hour after supper I expect to find her sitting on my bedroom sofa ready to earn my forgiveness. Kari is still breathing hard around my glove, but smilingly nod, so I kiss her shoulder, neck and cheek a few more times before taking the glove and towel and sending her out of my workshop.
I rinse and wash the towel, and hang it on the sink to dry before it I'll throw it in the washing basket. I assume Kari will be happy and looking forward to supper for the rest of the day, and hopefully she'll be overjoyed tomorrow morning.
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Just before supper, Elin shows up to report on how things have gone in Laxlanda Inn and with its hostess Åsa. I really should have said that Elin could take a horse, because she have walked. Sure, it's only about 25-28km, and I've walked more in one day myself, with a hiking backpack, but still. Laxlanda inn has had quite a lot of guests, and everything has gone really well. The work load might be a bit too much work now that Elin is no longer there, but Åsa knows she can always temporarily hire someone. Åsa seems to be managing the Inn well enough that we can let her continue until the Ting in late February. The ship is going back to Borgarsandr for wedding guest, and Elin could tag along, but I have realised that sooner or later I will need a Telegraph Operator, and Elin was one of the better ones at reading and writing. After all, she can also act as a maid and look after the guest mansion while we have wedding guests. When I give Elin the offer and show her what it's all about, she quickly accepts. Over the next few days, she will be given a crash course in Norse code by the guards. She already has all her possessions with her in her bag, because of course she have few possessions. When Elin sees how Ima and Shakini live here, she almost faints. She thought the Inn was very luxurious.