Chapter 38

Ken continued to attend four martial arts classes a week. He was slowly getting back into the swing of things. At least, he thought it was slow, but no one else did. He now easily rivaled Chad in skill and left him in the dust when it came to grace and control. The katas he'd been practicing for these last weeks flowed with a smoothness and power that only the top students could match.

Ken, however, saw little of that. The only person he compared himself to was Sensei Turcotte. Try as he might, he found he couldn't quite match the effortless movements of the older man. Weeks of stretching made it easier to move the way he thought he should, and weight work with Eric had put more muscle mass on his body. He noticed there were several women in the class giving him the eye.

He knew it, but never encouraged it. He did not intend to combine his study with what he now thought of as his vocation: a Priest. He didn't even use his power, any of it, in class. When he got tired, he got tired. He knew he could use some of the energy that he always carried to help him through, but never did.

It wasn't that he was worried about running out of energy. Everyone in the Circle tended to have sex at least once a day, often more than once, so there as plenty to collect. Interestingly, those of the Circle tended to produce purer, more powerful sexual energy than other people did.

Everyone was learning to moderate their activities with non-Circle people so that they didn't tire them out too much. However, he had noticed that a sustained sexual relationship between a Circle and non-Circle person made the non-Circle person more eager for sex, not less. Their stamina even increased, just not to the same level as someone in the Circle. Interestingly, a Priest or Priestess could feed back some of the energy that had been produced, which would allow their non-Circle partner to keep up, so to speak.

Despite the fact that non-Circle folks were more eager for sex, it wasn't that they weren't being satisfied. When they left the mansion, they often felt fulfilled in a way that they'd rarely felt before. If they were offered sex, they were still quite eager for it. Ken started to think of people who the Circle had sex with, but weren't followers of Lea, as Adherents.

Eric, of course, was curious about the mechanics of how the energy absorption/creation worked, because it didn't seem to follow the laws of energy conservation. Circle people could feed back energy to Adherents, but it seemed to require far less energy to revive the person than the Circle member had absorbed to begin with.

Eric had asked Lea about this and She smiled and said, "Magic is not obliged to follow the rules of Man."

Ken knew that Eric would never leave that alone.

He exited the dojo to find Arianwen pulling up in her Mini. Only rarely did one of the women stay for the class any more, but they still insisted on taking him and picking him up. Ken knew that Chad was watching as the teen jumped out and ran around to kiss him. She was well worth watching, that was for sure. She was wearing an extremely short, green, pleated skirt that barely covered her beautiful ass. On top was a translucent white top that one could almost see the dusky red of her nipples through, which outlined her rings quite clearly. It stopped just below her breasts and the back consisted of just a few straps. Her flaming red hair spilled down her back in curling waves. She looked so tiny against him, since she was wearing flat sandals. Her kiss left no doubt that he was her lover though.

Chad turned away, his arousal growing, as was his animosity towards Ken.

Once they were in the car, Ken said, "Ari, you shouldn't tease Chad like that."

She looked at him quizzically. "That asshole? I barely noticed him. It was Sensei Turcotte's attention I was trying to get." She sighed in frustration. "I don't understand him. He watches me, Jane too, but I can't get a single thing from him. Can you read him at all, Master?"

"No, I'm afraid I can't," replied Ken. That should have worried him, but it didn't. Another thing he'd found very interesting was the fact that he'd completely forgotten to ask Lea about the man every single time he saw Her. He didn't mention this to Ari though.

Ken made sure that he got a hold of the same courier that Lenny had used and had him hand-deliver the invitations for the housewarming. He hoped it would be enough time for everyone to respond.

On Wednesday, the four of them jumped into the X5 for Sally's first trip off the grounds of the mansion. She was nervous, but her Goddess had given her a command and she would obey it. Ken felt her shudder as they left the grounds and the shields protecting Nemetodunum fell away. He reached over, took her hand and smiled. She tried to smile back and felt Jane's arms wrap around her from the back seat.

"We're with you, my Sister," said Jane. "No one will hurt you."

Sally nodded silently.

The first two stops went well, and Sally began feeling much like her old self, laughing and joking with her Circle. The third stop held a surprise for her: she bumped into a woman from her old congregation.

"Sally," beamed the woman, who was slightly older than Sally, "where have you been? We haven't seen you at services in weeks." The woman was clearly trying to ignore Jane, whose hand Sally had been holding as they shopped. Ken and Arianwen walked up behind the woman.

Sally paled a bit, but neither backed away nor let go of Jane's hand.

"Hello, Marge," said Sally. "You haven't seen us because Eric and I have left the church."

"Oh?" frowned Marge. "I didn't know you had moved. Which church are you at now?" The woman clearly misunderstood.

"Actually, Eric and I have moved, but when I said we've left the church, I meant we've left the church period -- not your particular parish."

Sally was handling herself pretty well, but Ken could feel anger building in her. Marge, of course, was oblivious to it. Sally, despite the fact that she knew Marge was in no way responsible for what had happened to her, still wanted nothing to do with the woman. That worried Ken a bit.

Marge was taken aback by Sally's attitude. "I'm sorry to hear that," her glance sliding to Jane. The insinuation was obvious; Sally was having a homosexual affair -- most likely without her husbands knowledge.

Ken knew that that was exactly what Margie was thinking: that Sally had been seduced by Jane, and that Jane was responsible for her leaving the church. Considering some of the unGodly causes that Sally supported, it was no surprise that something like this had happened.

"Sally dear, you really should reconsider." Again she turned a distasteful eye toward Jane. "God forgives all, even those who have blasphemed against His will." She returned eyes to Sally and smiled, "Remember dear, only those who love Him and accept His mercy will be saved in the end."

This was the point where Ken felt Sally could react in one of two ways. She could either break down and start crying -- Ken could feel that possibility in her, slight as it was -- or she could physically attack the woman. She was that angry. To his surprise, she did neither.

"Thanks Marge, but I'm already saved. And I know more about your God's mercy than I want to. Good-bye."

Marge was confused. Something had obviously happened to the woman, but the only possibility she could think of was that Jane had seduced her into evil. As they started to walk away, Marge grabbed Jane's arm.

The taller woman looked down at Marge, who said, "You can be saved as well. Come to Him and share His light."

Jane looked down at the hand on her arm, then smiled and said, "I have all the light I need in my life, thank you."

Then she did something Ken had never seen her do. She pushed with just a tiny amount of power. She made no attempt to create a fantasy for Marge, who had no homosexual leanings at all. But Jane did manage to cause a sexual rush to flash through Marge's body. The older woman removed her hand as if it was being burned.

"Perhaps," said Jane, "You aren't as pure as you thought you were." With a knowing smile she and Sally walked away. Marge never did connect Sally as being with Ken and Arianwen, although she gave them a look of disgust as she walked by. She was miffed by the teen's overtly sexual appearance and wondered why Ken didn't do anything about it. She didn't give them too much thought, though, since her body was still tingling from Jane's touch.

Sally was quiet on the way back home, but not depressed. Ken could see her thinking about the reactions to the woman she'd talked to. She wasn't happy that she'd gotten as angry as she had. After all, it wasn't as if Marge had been the one to attack her.

Amazingly enough, by Thursday, he'd heard from almost everyone that he'd sent an invite to, including Sally's mom and Eric's parents. That made Sally a bit nervous, but it wasn't like she hadn't been talking to them on the phone. They were anxious to see their granddaughter and didn't really care what the excuse was.

Ken also made sure that certain people knew there'd be a play party starting Saturday morning and lasting to Sunday night -- or Monday morning, depending on when they wanted to leave.

Genie had moved in that Wednesday; with Eric, Ken, Arianwen and Jane helping, it was quick and efficient. She didn't tell Bill, who'd moved in on Monday. As wrapped up as he was in classes and the work he was doing in the mansion, he appeared not to notice his girlfriend was living with them now. Ken suspected that wasn't the case, but he didn't make a habit of constantly using his talent to read people's thoughts, although often he seemed not to be able to help getting surface thoughts. People deserved their privacy.

Later on Thursday, he found Arianwen sitting in the Garden, head in hands. She was upset, to say the least.

"Ari," he said sitting beside her, "what's wrong?"

She looked up with tears in her eyes and he hugged her.

"I'm sorry, Master," she said after a minute. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"Yes, there is," he chuckled. "You could tell me what's going on."

She sighed and looked around. "This is all so unreal sometimes. I mean, it's only been a month, and my life is completely different from anything I'd ever imagined. It's wonderful and fantastic but..." she didn't go on.

"You miss Tina."

"Yeah. My mom too -- at least the mom she used to be. But every time I talk to Tina, it seems like things are getting worse for her. I feel guilty living like this while she's a virtual prisoner. Mom's gonna force her to go to this religious summer camp. She's barely allowed out of the house anymore and she says Mom's always going through her stuff."

Ken wondered what the hell was going on with that woman. Her actions didn't seem rational.

"Plus," Ari continued, "she says that this new pastor, Father Bob, is really creeping her out. It's not like he's putting on the moves or anything, but the whole church has changed since he got there. She says it's like they've gone all born again, or something."

"Is there anything I can do?" asked Ken.

"I don't think so. Tina's just turned fifteen, so she can't leave on her own. I talked to Lenny and he said there wasn't really anything we could do -- unless mom throws her out like she did to me, or starts beating her." Ari was clearly upset at this state of affairs, and Ken didn't blame her.

Later that day, Ken went through all the returned invitations. He noticed that despite the 'and guest' part of the invitation, Joan had elected to come alone. Ken grinned at that and wondered what she'd think of the party that was starting on Saturday. Perhaps she could be introduced to it; she'd certainly enjoyed the little fantasy that he'd let her experience when she was here that first time.

He clicked an icon on the computer desktop to read his email. He liked the program that Bill had found for them to use, it was powerful, intuitive and worked very well. Bill had been very busy since the first play party. Ken was starting to wonder if the guy ever slept. Genie had no complaints, but then Genie had spent several nights with someone in the Circle.

Many of the rooms in the mansion, especially the important ones, now had computer screens in them. In addition to being able to surf the net and get email, they acted as an intercom system as well. Bill hadn't limited himself to the computers, either, and had been tinkering with the estate alarm system with Jane (to Ken's surprise) intently watching him. Plus, Eric and Bill had been busy spec-ing out the robotic vacuum cleaners that Ari had requested. Originally, Ken hadn't thought they'd go anywhere with that, but it appeared they were serious. Eric was even talking about designing a system to do the lawn and clean the pools.

Ken started reading his email. Lately, he'd noticed that he was getting no spam in his email. None. Not a single piece. His Yahell account had tons of it, but not his home account. Obviously, Bill had done something, again. Bill was even more of a genius than Ken had realized, and his cohort Eric seemed to be getting smarter by the day, too. With those two around, Ken found himself learning more about computers, software and robotics simply for self-defense, since he didn't like sounding like an idiot during a conversation. Though, come to think of it, he himself seemed to be retaining information more easily than ever before, and understanding what he remembered with surprising ease.

He suspected it was time to have a talk with Lea. She tended to be close-mouthed about changes She made in the humans who served Her. Ken had always been pretty bright, but nowadays things seemed to come to him very quickly. He'd noticed the trend in Jane and Sally, as well. Eric and Arianwen had already been incredibly quick on the uptake, but now they were bordering on frightening.

However, that was for later, whenever his Goddess might choose to make an appearance. Since Bill was home, Ken decided to find out what he'd done about the spam. He smiled as he walked upstairs.

As usual, Bill was in the lab, sitting in front of dual twenty-one-inch flat screens. He was frowning at the lines of code that appeared in several editors he had open. Ken had become passingly familiar with C++ and even some assembler, but this looked to be neither.

"Hey, Bill," he said.

"Hi, Ken," replied the young man, his eyes not leaving the screen. He was obviously absorbed, so Ken decided he'd talk to him later. He started to leave, when Bill swung around in his chair.

"What's up?"

"Nothing major. I can come back later, if you'd like," replied Ken.

"Na, I need a break anyway."

"Did you create some sort of spam filter? I notice that I haven't gotten any at all."

Bill smiled and said, "Good. Yeah, it's new. I didn't think you'd mind if I tested it here. Don't worry, all the email has been saved, but there's no spam going to the individual accounts." He suddenly looked worried, "Do you think that you're missing mail?"

"I doubt it. I was just wondering what was going on."

Bill was dodging something, Ken knew, but he wasn't willing to read him to find out what it was.

"If you have any trouble with it, let me know, okay?" Bill spun his chair back toward the screens, then back around to face Ken again. "Oh yeah, and we should be getting in some new hardware and a couple of vacuums from Germany -- maybe tomorrow. We only got two of the vacuums, because Eric thinks that we're gonna have to rebuild the things from the ground up -- new boards, new firmware, everything. He said I could put them to the house account because they were for Arianwen."

"Ah yes, the vacuum project. I'm sure Ari will appreciate not having to do that, it'll give her more time for other things."

Bill blushed slightly, then smiled. He knew all about the 'other things' Ari was involved in. He'd rarely woken up alone any morning when he slept here. Genie almost always slept in his bed, but was often gone to work when he got up -- or came to bed, depending on what he was working on. However, Ari, Jane or even Sally were almost always with him when he woke.