Dear Diary,

"A decision that is made,

With your back against the wall?

Not freely given Consent."

Doctrine of Tabitha, Book of Egalitarianism

Yeah, part of me really worries about spreading an idea across two verses, but I think I'm gonna have to. Now I just gotta remember to write the second half tomorrow. If I'm even the one writing it.

I really worry about what's gonna happen to me when I get this curse removed. Like, my gut says that Saffron and Marie and Siobhan are trustworthy. Like, ride or die trustworthy. I'm not even exaggerating there, I'm pretty sure any one of them would literally take a bullet for me. Would die for me. Really makes me feel some kinda way that I'm not sure I would do that for them.

Like, some kinda ways, really. On the one hand, I've known them what, a few days? Don't get me wrong. Awesome days. Literally orgasmic in most cases. Even yesterday, where I spent a big chunk of the day just lying around thinking about shit, wasn't half bad. In the afternoon, after Marie snagged Maze at lunch and brought me back one of the Pratchett books from the Academy, it almost reminded me of lazy days back in Camden. Only, y'know, with friends. No, not friends. Family. Family of my own choosing. Spouses, and that word being plural really fucks with me, because everything I was brought up to believe says that polygamy is an excuse for old men to rape twelve-year-old girls.

None of us are twelve, and none of us are men, and they are so obviously spouses that I'm absolutely stunned that one of them has alternately been referred to as 'Concubine' or 'Fiancé', and the other one apparently takes great glee in calling herself a Concubine. Like that shit is a badge of honor or some shit. Which... fuck, around here it might be. Like, I know there is a Lancaster in Pennsylvania, and Saffron told me the suite we're in is the Imperator's Suite at Lancaster House, so I'm guessing either we're somewhere in southern PA or there is just a weird linguistic parallel or some shit. But the shit about polygamy equals statutory rape is obviously incorrect, at least for our little group. Wait, are we a polycule? I don't even know.

Screw it. Family. We're a family, and I'll feed my foot to anybody who says different via their ass.

So, like, yeah, part of me is saying that I've only known them a couple days, and dying for them would be insane. But some other part of me, below my head and above my crotch? Knows that I would, without even thinking about it, take any hit up to and including death to keep them safe.

I mean, my first response would be to hit the hitter before they finish swinging, but sometimes you can't. Shit, if somebody had shot the sniper that killed me the moment the bullet left the barrel, that still wouldn't have saved my delinquent ass. So sometimes the only way to protect somebody is to take the hit. I get that. Nobody who grows up in a place like I did doesn't know that. Even if I'm not sure how many of them would do it.

But for those three? Or any of the kids? Fuck yes I would.

And now my brain is throwing up quotes from fuckin' Pitch Black of all places. "Not for me." I'm gonna die saving The Weyland Smith. Meh. Maybe he'll just be one of a bunch. I really hope if that shit goes down and I do wind up taking the hit for that sociopathic bastard that he takes the hint and decides to move into 'antihero' territory at the very least. As Church says though, the one who takes that hit never knows if the day was really saved.

Shit, after yesterday I was feeling pretty good. After last night, when my ladies scooped me up to visit that bedroom with the divan and the mirrors, I was feeling fuckin' great. Now I gotta go thinking about death and shit. I'd ask if I was my own worst enemy, but I think that's pretty fuckin' obvious.

Woke up with something not too far off from pleasantly sore. I mean, it wasn't the right kind of sore to be pleasantly sore. I think I finally understood right then what the ladies had said about my scars aching. Not enough to stop me, not enough to notice last night, but enough to wake me up just a little before dawn this morning. I tried not to think about how I knew it was just before dawn in a room, in an entire suite, without windows. "Anybody awake?" I whispered.

"Yes." replied Marie from where she'd curled up to let Siobhan, Saffron and I use her as a pillow.

At that point I had one of those awful intrusive thoughts. After a moment I realized it totally might do less damage if I let it out. "You're not mad at me or anything, are you?"

"No." I dunno how, but I got a strong sense of 'of course not' from that single syllable, with maybe just the tiniest bit of 'why do you ask' for good measure.

"Sorry, some part of my brain just worried that's why you're always monosyllabic. Well, not exactly, but you're always really, I dunno... You sound really definitive. Strict. Like you might do with an unruly kid about to get a whuppin'"

"No." That time she sounded maybe a little pissed.

"Uh..."

She sighed. I protect children. Even scamps.

"You just don't like talking or something?"

She reached over, took my hand, and brought it up to her mouth. "Maenad."

"You... Wait. Shit. I wish I could see what you look like."

Suddenly a picture arrived in my head. A picture of exactly what I was looking at in front of me. I noticed something right then, and slowly sat up and looked around. Heads around the room turned to look at me, and I realized that every one of them could have been sisters with Marie. Twin sisters, even. The super pale skin and platinum hair had made me think they maybe looked less alike than my initial impression, but now that I looked at them I realized they were absolutely identical, like they'd been stamped from a mold.

"Maenads?"

"Yes," all of them whispered back, although none of them had that bedrock certainty except Marie.

"You can look through my eyes, right?" She nodded. "Look now. Tell me what you see?"

I felt her looking, and she grinned, amused. "Hair."

"Your hair is the only thing that's the same?"

She shrugged and slipped my hand down to cup her breast. "Size."

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I couldn't help it, my giggle might have been a little louder, just enough to make some of the women and kids around me to start stirring. "You mean the only things I'm seeing right are your hair and your cup size?" At her furrowed brow, I said, "the size of your tits?" She smiled and nodded, and I shook my head. "Fuck, I kinda wish I could see what you actually look like." I lifted my hand to her cheek and smiled. "I mean, you're beautiful, but I feel like I'm... I'd... I want to see beautiful you, not a beautiful illusion."

I'd thought maybe I'd imagined it before, but right then, with nothing else going on in the room except the quiet noises of people stirring before waking, Marie's purr hit my ears like an avalanche of sound. She also clamped her hand over mine, holding it against her cheek, rubbing against it. After a bit sitting like that, as the kids got up and lined up to use the toilet, she turned my hand, opened her mouth, and slipped my hand into it. She leaned forward so I could see my own palm, then closed her mouth excruciatingly slowly. I couldn't see it until after I felt it, but my palm dimpled, almost like somebody'd pressed a Philips screwdriver into it or some shit like that. Or maybe a railroad spike. It didn't hurt, exactly, but I got the very clear impression that if she put one iota more pressure into it, it might. Briefly.

The weirdest thing? The vibrations along my arm absolutely soothed the shit out of me. I had all I could do to keep myself from just flopping over until Saffron sat up, stretched, then frowned at Marie. "Really, Marie?"

Marie chuckled, her mouth opening to release my hand. She still had a grip on my wrist, though, and she used that to show the unpunctured skin of my palm to Saffron before rubbing my hand across Saffron's face not unlike I'd done to Marie.

"Gah. Blech. Drool. Tiger drool. Maenad drool all over my face."

"Problems?" Marie snarked.

Saffron straightened her back, doing a picture perfect offended nobility look. "Yes, actually." I prefer that lower down.

Marie and I both snorted, then broke down laughing. Fortunately Siobhan sat up just before I collapsed, or I'd have totally clotheslined her. Saffron sniffed, stood up and started on her way to the bathroom. Before she got out of reach, Marie swung our interlaced hands around to grab her ankle. When she looked down, Marie smirked up at her and said, "Tonight."

She grinned down at us, and suddenly I knew what 'a look full of promise' really meant. I look forward to it.

Marie and I got up and went into the bathroom, where she stood me next to a massive pile of towels. The moment I got there, Saffron lifted Isnomi out of the bath and sent her toward me. I took the hint and toweled the rugrat down until her body was dry and her hair was damp at worst. I wrapped her hair with the towel and twisted it around into a turban. Her eyes got super wide, and she breathed out, "coow!" before toddling off toward Marie, who stood there with a big stack of clothes and what looked like a sewing kit.

I didn't see what she did, though, because the next kid came toddling toward me. Daya, I think? Itty bitty strawberry blonde kid. I toweled her dry, gave her a turban, which got me a whispered, "thank you," then sent her on her way to Marie.

One by one, I dried kids off and sent them to Marie. Weirdest thing had to be the 'girliest girl to ever girl', who was not packing girl plumbing. I mentally shrugged, toweled her dry, gave her a turban, and gave her a little push on the butt toward Marie when she tried to see her own head without a mirror. I think overall we must have spent at least an hour in the bathroom. Maybe more. None of the Maenads got in the tub; they'd moved over to the area beyond Marie, where they'd been brushing each other. Not, like, brushing each other's hair, although there was some of that, but using brushes on their bare skin. Which made me think that maybe that skin wasn't so bare, and made me want to see what Marie really looked like even more. When Isnomi got to them, one of them corralled her while another pulled her towel turban off and went to work brushing out her hair. I had to guess that was part of the routine, because she didn't squirm or cry or pitch a fit, she just stood there in what looked like a little military uniform, arms folded with a longsuffering expression on her face.

Before I knew it, Siobhan stepped up to me. "Please be gentle, Hero?"

I snorted and started toweling her off. "Like I'd get busy with you here. There are," I looked around right then and realized that all the kids were gone. At a guess, headed down to breakfast or something. Most of the women and all of the Maenads had left already too. There were only like two people left other than the four of us. "Uh, other ladies present."

She smiled, a little flushed, and leaned back into my arms as I toweled her. "Tabitha, I know you don't remember this, but our first time was a fortnight and five days ago, and it began with you taking me in a vast meadow open to the sky, daring any God or Mortal to look upon us, daring them to envy our rapturous joy."

"Uh..."

She tilted her head back as I rubbed at her long, fine hair and said, "if you wanted to take me in front of the entire student body of the Academy, I'd only ask that you gag Trease first." Her upside down smile swayed back and forth a little, and she flushed bright red.

"You okay, Sister?"

"Only if you call me Siobhan."

"Okay then, Siobhan. You okay?"

She smiled, turned around, and hugged me. "Please. I know you don't really remember, but... whisper 'Ice Pop' in my ear like you intend to eat me like a tasty treat?"

Screw it, the last of the not-us ladies was on her way out the door, and it's not like she wanted me to do her right then and there. Not that I had a whole lot of objections now that we had a little privacy. I turned her around to face away from me, pulled her back to my chest so I could whisper into her ear, and breathed out, "I remember last night. Ice. Pop."

She crumpled like somebody'd cut her strings. I caught her before she hit the floor, scooping her up and staring at the giddy smile on her flushed face. "Shit! Is she okay?"

Saffron chuckled, rolling her eyes. "She is malnourished. There may be other factors, but for now I've given her a diet to follow. I worry that she's not, though."

Marie held her arms out, and I carried Siobhan over to her. Marie took a knee, settled Siobhan on her thigh, and started in on her hair. When the Sister's eyes fluttered open, I leaned in, looking her right in the eyes. "Siobhan?"

"Yes, Tabitha?"

"Have you been eating the diet Saffron asked you to follow?"

She shifted her eyes, then muttered, "but it's so much..."

I sighed. "I'm worried about you, Siobhan. It's really flattering, you fainting just from me whispering in your ear, but it's kinda cheating if I'm starving you to do that."

She jerked, looking back at me like I'd goosed her. "You aren't starving me!"

"So you're starving yourself?" She got a mulish look, and I grinned my best rakish grin at her, slipped up close until our foreheads touched, then quietly said, "do you think we're trying to fatten you up or something?" More mulish. "You know what happens once you're fattened up?"

She blushed a little and, a little whine in her voice, said, "no?"

I slow blinked, then darted a glance downward and said, "I eat you." Yeah, when she woke up again I said, "so, gonna eat your veggies?"

She crossed her arms over her chest, annoying Marie, who'd been working her robes onto her. "I am not going to be bribed to eat like... like... like a child."

I jerked back, one hand going to my chest. "I'm hurt! I am absolutely not going to bribe," I grinned, leaning in close again and letting my voice go all hoarse as I said, "a child with that." I tilted my head, thought a second, then brought my finger up to my mouth. "Or did you not want me to do that for a few hours tonight?"

"Hours?" she squeaked.

"Oh, yeah." I smiled at her, leaning in to watch her pupils dilate. "Hours." Blush. "And hours." Dilate, fluttering lashes. "And. Hours."

As she cradled Siobhan with one arm, Marie leaned over and declared, "Rake." before kissing me.

I really thought I'd done some good rizz throwing there. Not just, like, 'done a good with my rizz', but I figured three consecutive knockouts with only some breathy words and smoky looks was pretty good.

Then, as Siobhan sat up, giggling a little to herself, Saffron called out, "Stop playing with your food and get over here and scrub me, Goof."

Dammit.

Then again, by the time I was dry I had no complaints. Probably something about her whispering shit into my ears that melted my brain the whole fuckin' bath. Kinda made it hard to write today, though. Mostly because of how many of those little suggestions had to do with how well she'd fit under the desk. Look, I don't care how many people are 'worshipping' me, I'm only human, and my wife's game is just on an entirely different level. Makes me think of that Ludacris song.

Because my chick? Absolutely badder than yours.