Chapter 16

“My man!” sighed Octavia as she settled her shapely ass into Nick’s lap. “Did I tell you that when you said, “My Woman” that I almost came?”

“Yes,” said Nick, as he set his quill down and put his arms around Octavia. “But you never told me where you went.”

Octavia looked at him in shock, “You don’t know what cum means?”

“Of course, it means to move closer, to arrive at a destination, to approach...” he was stifled by her lips and as they kissed their souls melded, their hearts beat in unison, and further down, their bodies ached for each other.

“You are silly,” then she whispered in his ear, “I almost had an orgasm!”

“Is that dangerous?”

Octavia’s jaw actually dropped. “You don’t know what that is?”

“Sorry honey,” came a voice from under Nick’s chair, “he ain’t never had a bitch.”

“Gaspode! We talked about this,” warned Nick.

“You’ve never had ... sex?” asked Octavia, utterly astonished that someone who spent their life on the streets of Ankh-Morpork has never had sex.

“Yes, I do. I’m a boy.”

“You’ve never made love to somebody?”

Nick looked utterly confused. “Love is an emotion, a feeling. How do you make a feeling?”

“I tried to warn ya babe.”

“Gaspode!”

“Boink? Screw? Hump? Frigg? Shag? Score? Get a blow job? Give a girl an Ecksian kiss?...” To each of her questions, Nick shook his head in confusion.

“He’s a babe in the woods, dear.”

“Gaspode!”

“That’s ok sweetheart,” said Octavia, “I love being your woman and I want to feel this way forever. We have time...” and with one more heart stopping kiss she got up. “I’m going to check on the children, you continue with your calligraphy.” She rose reluctantly and stepped out into the main library where “their children,” the underclassmen who have been cleaning up Poco Curante’s mess, were trying to repair decades of neglect in a desperate attempt to locate Aleister Gardner and the Thaumaturgical Prestidigitation of Time and Space, a Primer.

Since being trained and taught by Mesquite almost constantly, Nick was able to read, but he had to learn to write. He knew how the letters and numbers are shaped, but he’s never written anything in his life. He has to train his hands to write because right now he’s discovering what the term “Chicken Scratches” means. At first, he had to use quill and ink because there were no pencils in the library; Poco Curante claimed that pencils and scratch paper encouraged students to write in the books. Happily, one of the students located a slate and some chalk and Nick now had the proper tools to practice his penmanship.