Early Morning
Nexus Ranch
Near Harborton, Washington

“We need to talk,” Kelly said as she spied Ben coming down the stairs from the bedroom.

Ben would wager that in the entire history of mankind, those words never bode well when coming from a woman. It sounded particularly ominous coming from five women, all of whom he was married to.

They were waiting for him arrayed around the breakfast table. They didn’t ‘seem’ upset to him and he didn’t remember doing anything particularly egregious in the last twenty-four hours. In fact, he was pretty sure that they were all happy campers yesterday as he had managed some high-quality alone time with each of them.

“Sure my loves, what’s up?” Ben replied as he began making his way around the breakfast table giving each of his wives a quick good morning kiss and a squeeze.

“Sit and eat Miho,” said Maria as she poured coffee for him and pulled him into his seat next to her.

“We’ll brief you on the situation as you eat,” said Lizzie.

Ben thought it interesting how his princess Lizzie had changed from a shy nerd into an extremely capable strategist and businesswoman. Her choice of words meant she was obviously wearing her businesswoman’s panties today.

Everyone seemed very nonchalant but he knew something was up because Sarah couldn’t stop squirming in her seat and kept flashing him a mischievous smile whenever she looked his way.

Mei was serene as usual. But she uncharacteristically laid her hand on his thigh under the table from her seat on the other side of him. It wasn’t sexual- he could feel soothing waves of attention being focused on him.

“Okay girls, I know something major must be up. If I did something, I apologize and I won’t do it again,” said Ben with his best hangdog look.

“No silly boy, you aren’t in trouble- this time,” said Kelly with a laugh.

“It’s just we had a very interesting visit last night,” said Maria.

“All of us, simultaneously were called into a meeting with our goddess sponsors,” said Lizzy.

“That’s never happened before,” added Sarah.

“Hmmm okay so what did the celestial ladies have to say?” asked Ben as he scooped fistfuls of Consuela’s amazing eggs and half a pound of apple-smoked bacon onto his plate. He was starving this morning after yesterday’s multiple romps. Good thing his metabolism was jacked or he’d have to be rolled from room to room before too long.

“Well you know we’ve come to a certain understanding about spreading your ‘favors’ around,” said Lizzy, carefully tip-toeing around the sensitive topic.

Ben nodded. as he munched his way through a few thousand calories. Christ on a crutch. First, there was the debt they owed the Valkyries, then the promise to the Fae and to a certain Nephilim princess. Not to mention all the others vetted for him that he was assured would be great matches. As far as he could tell the female contingent of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was on the list somewhere. He realized he was doing it for the survival of Nexus and their legacy but there had to be a limit somewhere.

“Well apparently that’s not going to be enough,” said Sarah with a shit-eating grin.

Ben nearly choked on his bacon and Mei had to slap his back a few times until he could swig some coffee down.

“What the hell? Girls, you five and Jean are about to wear little Ben down to a nub. How am I supposed to do even more? A man’s got to rest sometime,” exclaimed Ben.

“Hah!, your nub was doin’ just fine yesterday. I think the neighbor’s cattle will be traumatized for life,” said Kelly.

“And I think their bull might develop an inferiority complex,” added Maria with a blush remembering her part in the pasture tryst of the day before.

“Besides you remember what we learned from Pan about your capabilities,” said Kelly. “The more you do, the more you can do.”

“And it’s not necessarily about quantity,” said Kelly gesturing toward Lizzy.

“Ah, yes. According to the gods, it has to do with the distribution of your DNA and the stochastic randomness of possible recombinations. Apparently, our choosing of your partners exclusively from women that we know forces a premature Quantum collapse of probabilities that leads to suboptimal results. I ran some sample data through my systems and confirmed they were right. Ben, we need to have you introduce some chaos into the process to ensure that we not only end up with a generation of children with special abilities but also a set of unique women who have been enhanced by the “Ben Effect”. In fact, the women themselves may prove to be major players in keeping the Nexus moving forward and help in our survival against the forces of the Dark.