We started unpacking immediately. The glass was easy to pick out from the rest, but the difference between connection pieces, ingredients and tools was not quite as clear to my alchemically unlearned dates. “Where does this go?” Esther wanted to know, holding up a green, squishy ball of a moss-like material.

“Connection piece,” I responded patiently, having answered similar questions repeatedly for the past twenty minutes. This wasn’t their area of expertise and I was just happy to have the extra hands. That was, until the preliminary sorting was done and the actual using began. “You sit over there,” I shooed them off into the corner, where they wouldn’t be in the way.

Halfway through planning my setup for this catalysation, I was reminded how lucky I was that I had the nerves of a brazen seagull. A lot of people got stage fright, particularly when doing something in front of people for the very first time. I just lacked that bit of ‘reasonability’, having Esther and Aclysia watch made no difference to me.

On the contrary, I was grateful for the opportunity to have the silence filled with their words. “Feel free to ask me anything,” I told them, while tightening several clamps around the edge of the table. Each of them had a metal rod that expanded vertically. That was going to be the skeleton of my set-up. The rods would be used to hold the various glass bits at whatever levels of elevation I needed them at.

That being said, the aphrodisiac massage oil was not an experiment that required that much in terms of boiling, catalysing, reduction, and condensation. It was a primarily tool-using creation process, which was why it was so beginner friendly.

“Remind me, my Karitas, alchemy works off esotericism, correct?”

“It’s largely influenced by esoteric meaning and symbolism, yes,” I softly corrected her in my agreement. “There are still scientifically trackable processes in there. It’s a mixture of both.” I scanned through my glass pieces. I started at the end and placed a flask where I would want the finished oil to emerge. Then I switched to where it should start.

“If symbolism is of import,” Aclysia spoke up, “I would like to inquire what you considered when creating the outline of this personalized setup in your head?”

“Good question,” I told her, since it was one I had sort-of hoped for. I attached the various glass utensils to the three rods I had prepared, while I answered. “If this were pure chemistry, there would be a correct way to make this setup, but I was wondering ‘what do I want from this oil and how could a bunch of glass represent that?’ The answer, my dearest ladies, was clear and quickly found, for it is what I desire at most times – at all times if I… long rambling short,” I interrupted myself after Esther warningly cleared her throat, “the way I’m setting this up, the ingredients will go through a gradual rise and then a rapid fall. It symbolises an orgasm. At least, to me, that is, which is the primary thing that matters here.”

“I understand the thought process,” Esther hummed, while I stepped back.

There were only five pieces involved. It started at the level of the table with a large flask that had one opening to pour things in and one opening that then connected with a slanted tube. Between it and a second of its kind was a glass ball with a dense spiral filling out most of it. The fifth and final piece was half of an upside-down U. The inside of the tube was wavey, the end pointed right at the opening of the flask I had placed earlier.

All of that was in place, but I wasn’t done yet either. I was eager to explain and Aclysia did me the favour to give me the excuse. “What are you doing now?”

“The glass is all in place, but I still need to prepare some things. First off, there needs to be a cooling agent. Just some cold water will do.” I went over to a hose I had screwed onto the water vent and filled a common drinking glass with it. That then was poured into the glass ball with the spiral.

“You want condensation halfway up?” Esther asked, confused.

“That’s what the Attraction Sponge is for,” I explained, tapping the mossy ball that Esther had asked about earlier. It was stuck between the second upwards slanted and the half-U piece. “As long as a brew is in a state of longing, it will ignore gravity and move towards the sponge.”

“…I do understand, conceptually,” Esther stated. “In detail, how a mixture of compounds can have a mood is confusing to me each time you mention it.”

“You aren’t cut out for alchemy then,” I told her, not for the first time. “Luckily, you have me.”

“My luck will be demonstrated by your success.”

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

I hummed my agreement, while wrapping the final piece of the contraption with reusable cloth. When the oil was finishing up, I needed it to be infused with symbolic privacy. With that finished, I got to mixing the actual ingredients together.

First, I needed some Alchymiet. The base compound made everything way easier, even if it wasn’t strictly necessary, and I had brought a twenty-litre container of it from the university to my home a week ago. The fluid was harmless on its own, so all one really needed to take some of it outside the laboratories on campus was a container.

I poured exactly 500 mL of it into a chemical container. The measurement was important, as the amount of Alchymiet I used would dictate how much oil I had in the end. Half a litre of aphrodisiac oil would cover us for a while, especially since I wouldn’t use it on every massage opportunity. This was a special occasion type of thing.

What and how much stuff I added to the Alchymiet wouldn’t matter for the amount of produce in this particular refinement. At the best of times, alchemy’s relation to the law of conservation of mass was shaky.

I separated my 500 mL of Alchymiet into five batches. That, I did by feeling. With the initial measurements done, we were now out of the realm of science and completely into the realm of art. Three batches I kept in bowls, one in a mortar and one in the original container.

The one in the mortar was the smallest by a large margin, not least of all because it didn’t fit a lot. I grabbed the first of the proper ingredients, flower petals from a variety of dusk flowers, and crushed them into the Alchymiet, creating a deep purple paste. I sprinkled it with pixie dust, and it all turned into a warm yellow, without any further actions. A capricious, lustful mixture, that I put to the side to calm down.

I grabbed the batch in the original container second and just swirled it around for a while. Nothing happened with the stable base compound, I just prepared it, esoterically, to take back what had been poured out of it.

I moved onto the bowls. For the first, I grabbed a large leaf from the Leyndell Tree, one that was famous for the oil that could be won from its bark. I would use the reputation of that tree to convince my brew to take in the wanted viscosity. With my hands, I ripped the leaf apart and sprinkled it into the bowl. Then I poured all of that into the original container.

“POP!” a loud noise echoed through the room, when the Alchymiet that I had prepared to receive some part of itself reacted enthusiastically. I stirred it some more and watched as the leaves dissolved, tinting the clear fluid light green.

The second and third bowl both received the same ingredient: a batch of jelly slime, which I hand-kneaded for a while before separating it into two equal halves. One bowl was then poured back into the original container as well. Now there was both oil and massage in the symbolic make-up of the fluid. What I needed now was to prepare the rest of it for the process it needed to go through and the aphrodisiac it needed to be.

To make something an aphrodisiac, the final brew needed to be lustful, obviously, as well as enticing, encouraging, stimulating and mildly forceful. The crushed dusk flowers did a good start for the lustful bit, but I needed a bit more. I took a bottle of crushed sandalwood and mixed it in the now large batch, then added cinnamon and a drop of tabasco. Into a hollow hand, I poured a few coffee beans and whispered to them sweet nothings. When I added them in, the entire brew expanded in volume. To curb its excitement, I first added the second slime-infused batch.

Then I had to wait for a little while. To add the flower pulp now would have been disastrous for what I was going for. I needed to wait until both the excited main batch and the capriciousness of the flower pulp had calmed down. Too much enthusiasm on the brew’s part and I would come out with libido-boosting bombs instead of oil.

When the flower pulp had turned back purple, I deemed it ready. I tossed it back into the main container. While it was absorbed into the entire liquid, I prepared the flask at the start of the procedure. I threw a sandstone in there, along with some scraps of parchment and a piece of metal I had left laying in the sun. Together, they would give the brew a need to wander and the blank parchment, specifically, would leave it longing for its purpose.

“Alright, final step,” I announced. All of that had taken me about twenty minutes. Now, in front of my captivated audience, I poured the mixture into the secondary opening of the flask at the start of my glass contraption. Once everything was in, I closed it off with a glass lid and watched the brew inside.

The wanderlust soon took hold of my alchemical preparations. Without boiling, the entire brew turned into a pinkish red mist, which flowed up the first tube. The moment of truth was when it hit the spiralling glass sphere. There, the brew’s mood was cooled and the gas liquified. For a moment, I was disappointed, seeing some reflux happening. Then, I noticed that the liquid turned around before going more than a quarter back down the way it came. It seemed it had just had some doubts, but was ultimately clear in its purpose.

Now truly pink, the brew climbed all the way to the Attraction Sponge and then dropped down the final segment. What happened behind the wrapped cloth was a mystery, as it should be. Fact was that a translucent oil fell down into the flask I had placed there. Of the pink, only a slight tint remained.

“Success,” I declared and stepped away, to let the rest of the procedure play out as it should.

Aclysia applauded me, “A splendid display of alchemy.”

“Thank you, thank you,” I said with a bow. “It was an honour servicing you tonight.”

“On the matter of tonight,” Esther spoke up. “I believe I am to get a massage, still?”

“Of course, only the greatest of attention for my lady’s back,” I agreed swiftly.

Aclysia, knowing where this was going, excused herself. “I will tend to the laundry. I will see you two in the morning, my King, my Queen,” she said, a slight smile playing around her lips.

She knew she would be a part of this in a few weeks.