Frank swore at the screen again, but it refused to acknowledge his dismay.

The linear combination method was completely failing to converge, which meant that there wasn't likely going to be any translation of the new tablets any time soon. He didn't know why he'd gotten apparent success when he ran the program against Linear A texts ... hell, maybe he hadn't. People had claimed to have deciphered Linear A before: Tsikritsis, Gordon, and Best all took a swing at it, though their results were contested. His own results had looked good, giving a correlation to both Etruscan and several early Levantine languages, and there were only a few who scoffed at his translations of the Mallia glyphs-- he figured it was a sure shot running his algorithm against the new inscriptions they'd found in Iraq last week. He'd even promised an interview with a local rag as soon as the results were in-- the unearthing of a huge structure that appeared to be an ancient temple was big, distracting news to a media obsessed with the Middle East and all of its foibles.

The media seemed even more intrigued with the stone tablets found beneath the altar stone-- and he couldn't blame them. The lettering was remarkably regular-- almost printing-press quality, considering the technology at the time-- and graven in stone rather than the clay which was common in that age. The characters were in no known mode, and fit no known language profile, so it fell on someone to try to solve the mystery, and that someone was Frank Pilaster, expert linguist and the computer modeler who had apparently cracked Linear A.

Pride goeth before the fall, he thought to himself as he extracted his head from his hands. Shit.

Frank wandered about the lab space, knocking books off shelves and kicking tables and even smashing a (replica!) Minoan funerary urn. Dammit! What the hell was he supposed to do now?

A low beep indicated he had email, and he wandered over to read it, or to SHIFT-DELETE the thing, if the mood he was in right now was any indication. It was from Sepi, his supposed research "partner", though her work so far had been completely unused--

His intention had been to at least read what the woman'd had to say, but it suddenly occurred to him that he cared a hell of a lot more about what she'd had to code.

Months back, before the Linear A success, both Frank and Sepi had worked to provide two different engines for the linguistic decode algorithm: he had concentrated on linear combinational logic, and Sepi had worked through the more computationally intensive, expensive, and more esoteric neural network/fuzzy logic model. They'd disagreed over which would prove more useful, and the fact that Frank's simpler technique had worked on Linear A had provided him vindication ... or so he'd thought before today. Now, Sepi was off gallivanting around on Winter Break while he sat in an overheated lab space in the archaeology building, pissing the time away with a $100,000 multiprocessing supercomputer and an algorithm that didn't work.

But what if he replaced his own non-working code with hers? They'd never actually tried the damned stuff out-- hadn't needed to, with the results he'd gotten-- but both engines used the same front end interface, it should just be a matter of plug-and-play.

He checked her latest version out of the repository, then compiled it in with the graphical front end and all the image-processing libraries. After correcting a couple of syntactical typos in Sepi's code, the executable compiled and linked without errors, and he proceeded to train it.

Neural networks were more of a dark art than a science. You identified the input parameters and the output parameters, then fed the system data with known good results. The system pseudo-randomly varied the weights and values of its millions of tiny simulated "neurons", all interconnected, until it was complicated and sophisticated enough to independently derive the known good results from input data. Then, if the neural network was modeling correctly, you could take new data it had never been offered before and draw the right conclusions about it. It's how cognitive scientists postulated the human brain worked, but the results were highly specialized instead of general, and results were iffy. Some data was very well suited to neural network analysis, but some was not, and it had proved rather difficult, in the practical world, to determine which was which.

In this case-- the translation of ancient texts-- Frank had assumed that the systems were not complicated enough to warrant this kind of analysis: there were only about forty independent characters in this new manuscript, all told. Sepi had disagreed, and since Frank didn't really have anything else to do right now, he figured he might as well try her stuff out.

He spent the rest of the morning feeding the model streams of ancient texts from Egypt, Minoa, Persia, Sumeria, Babylonia, Crete ... oh, hell, he threw in old Celtic manuscripts as well, and some very old Chinese, even though the latter two were unrelated to what he was looking for both in time and in space. Matching the texts with their English translations, he pushed more than thirty gigabytes of crap from the university's archives into the model. He threw in his now-suspect Linear A translation for good measure.

He let the damn thing crunch overnight, then went to the bar and downed several whiskey sours in self-pity and slept until noon the next day.

Frank was completely unmotivated to show up at the lab the next morning, but Morgan wasn't due in until tomorrow, everyone else he knew was out of town, and lying in bed darkly contemplating the hideous Jetsons-esque light fixture was not doing anything for him. Besides, he'd be taking the next day off to greet Morgan on her return, so he ought to get something done. He put on a pair of sweat pants and a rock t-shirt from the 1980s and headed into the building.

The system was done digesting, apparently, as it had left as its remains a string of measurements which he knew would have meant something to Sepi but sure as hell told him zilch. The pulsating cursor reminded him of his luck in avoiding a hangover-- well, too much of one, anyway-- and he made it go away for awhile by typing in a string of commands which would input images of all seventeen of the tablets that Ashraf had found at the dig site. Subsequently, if the stars were right, it would give them some inkling of what the heck this newly-rediscovered language actually was, and what it was saying. A couple more keystrokes and...

Holy fucking-- he emitted (somewhat prophetically, in view of what was to come).

Frank stared dumbfounded as the words slowly began to appear-- sometimes out of order, but eventually filling in the interstices. Little annotation marks appeared, with clickable footnotes detailing the probability of accuracy of any given word or phrase. A summary sheet, updated every few seconds or so, detailed various statistics, including the average estimated accuracy.

It was in the mid-90s.

He gave a whoop which undoubtedly spooked anyone left in this godforsaken building, and then started reading the results of the fifth tablet.

... this can be avoided by forbidding her from speaking to such friends [in the future]. Understand, though, that this will [generate?] anger within Woman and it is moreover difficult to [enforce?] without setting a constant watch over her. In these [cases?] My advice is to let Woman have her small victory and cherish it, while you can use this event in [conversations?] for years to come as an example of how [reasonable?] and generous a lord you are to her...

Amazing! The software was generating coherent sentences from the text. Sure, some of the interpretations were listed as questionable, but the days of slaving over photographs for months or even years to puzzle out some modicum of meaning were apparently over. He'd get a Nobel Prize. Or something. Or they would, more correctly, but he was already so excited at the prospects that the memory of the failure of his own model was fading.

He shook his head to clear the victory hormones and began to concentrate on the text itself. The snippet he'd just read was completely unprecedented, and appeared ... yes, on further perusal appeared to be advice to men on how to get along with their wives. The rest of Tablet 5 concentrated on methods of ensuring a peaceful household. He set the software to log the results and executed another instance of it on another tablet chosen at random. Tablet 3.

You will find that all children born of Woman will have a scar on their [abdomen] from feeding in the womb. You shall call this scar the "navel". This area will seem [entirely?] useless on Woman during the rigors of daily life, and may even be a [nuisance?], since it accumulates filth if not washed regularly. Be not fooled. The navel is very important in [maintaining?] control over Woman, as I have endowed it with certain properties...

Primitive "magic", with body taboos detailed! He'd seen something vaguely akin to this at an ancient Cretan site, but nothing this old or descriptive. He couldn't wait to publish-- this gave an astounding portrait of what the ancient proto-Sumerians believed, and how they lived their lives. Logging this as well, he moved to Tablet 1.

Woman: The Owner's Manual

by El

He guffawed at the first line, and at the second, and searched for the probabilities on the word "owner". Nope, the translation was listed as 99% probable. So the proto-Sumerians considered their women property? Well, they certainly weren't the last, and probably not the first, either. Interesting, and proof of DeMonahans' theories. He hated to give that prick anything to swell his head further, but ... hell, there was going to be so much brouhaha about Frank's own discovery he could afford to be magnanimous.

And "El" ... Leave it to the proto-Sumerians to insist that their texts had been written by God Himself. Again, not uncommon ... hell, many Muslims and even some Christian sects said the same thing about their holy books. Regardless of how you felt about the fictitious byline, just the fact that the writer was trying to convince his audience of the divine origins of the document meant that the tablets would provide wonderful insight into the culture's religious beliefs. Or, at the very least, into the beliefs of someone educated enough to write the document and rich enough to have it so painstakingly and perfectly enscribed, and someone like that had to be important and therefore worth reading.

He started paging through more of the translation, hitting a heading that intrigued him and made him giggle like a little boy. "'Getting Inside Her Mouth'?"

... it will become [tedious?] to constantly have to ask or even demand that she take your manhood in her mouth, so I have provided an [expedient?] method of ensuring your needs are met. Simply grasp both of her ears in your hands and gently rub around their edge [in a circular motion]. The [reflex?] may take some time to manifest, so it may be wise to regale her with tales of your valiant deeds that day, ask what color stones she'd like you to use as the next room of the house, or even [chasten] her regarding the untidiness about the hearth-fire, as long as you continue this selfsame rubbing. Soon enough the need will seize her, and she will fill her throat with you, [dutifully?] swallowing your seed when you are done. You can thank Me later...

A frickin' Bronze Age sex manual. Un-fucking-believable. He didn't know whether to publish in the Journal of Middle-Eastern Antiquities or Penthouse Forum. Frank had never thought he'd get wood from his work (well, some of the Ishtar manuscripts had some hot descriptions, but still), but he found himself taking a break in the bathroom, imagining a temple "virgin" licking his cock and drinking his come as he masturbated into the toilet. Whew.

Mission accomplished, he headed back to the computer lab to read more.

When he finally got home at midnight, the light was on in the bedroom. He was initially cautious-- Ted Lefevre's place had been robbed a couple of months back-- but he heard the sound of his stereo playing Jars of Clay and found it an unlikely selection for the garden variety burglar. Morgan was home early, he suspected.

She looked up, startled, at his entrance, the loudness of the music having masked the sound of the door opening. Her long, lithe form was covered neck to ankles in a smooth, shimmery gown, and the impractical but sultry spiky heeled slippers he had told her were "smoking hot" peeked out the bottom. "Hi, honey," she smiled.

"Hi. I wasn't expecting you until tomorrow." He kissed her. "Not that I'm complaining."

"My parents were annoying, and my brother was impossible. I decided the fifty bucks to change my flight was worth it."

"Worth it to me, anyway."

"Really?" she smirked. "What do you mean, sir?"

"I mean that I'm going to turn this music off and make my own noise."

"Do tell."

"I'd rather show." He joined her on the bed and cradled her ass in his palms while he put his lips to own, then to her jawline, and to her neck. She inhaled sharply as he went there, and he saw her nipples appear through the satin. He heeded their call and mouthed them through the material, dampening it with his saliva as she ran her fingers through his hair, moaning. She parted her thighs and accepted his erection between them, moist and eager against his solidity through a few layers of cloth. He pressed his cock up against her and her breath hitched as she pressed back. "You have too many clothes on," she whispered.

He rectified that situation, smiling, and on his way back to her took the time to hike up her gown. Her long legs were revealed, and the lack of panties at their apex revealed her neatly trimmed bush. "Mmmmm," he commented. "Yummy."

She purred in response, and he took that as an invitation to eat her pussy out. He used his thumbs to move her lips apart and filled the gap with his tongue, licking around her folds, avoiding her clitoris in a stubborn but effective attempt at tantalizing her. When she started moving her cunt around in desperation, trying to get him attached to her clit, he finally relented and sucked the tiny bud into his mouth, resulting in a panted, "Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!" from Morgan. Soon she was indeed making noises louder than the stereo had been, and her legs tensed into steel cables as she smeared his face with her sauce. Before she could recover, he had topped her and thrust himself inside her drenched slit, causing her eyes to roll up into her head and her ankles to lock around his. Her aroma and flavor had triggered something primitive in his brain and he was only moments away from coming as soon as he had entered her. This excitement fed hers, and by the time he had lost control and was ramming into her without reason or rhyme, clutching her shoulders to attain more depth, she was screaming in his ear and raking his back with her nails.

They sweated and breathed together for a moment before he kissed her lightly and pulled out and away. He moved into a position next to her and let her rest against him as she drowsed. In a fit of pique and with an inward self-mocking smile he began to circle her ears with his thumbs as he told her of his success in decoding the ancient text. She was a Finance grad student and couldn't care one whit about archaeology, he knew, but she listened all the same. Soon she started to glaze over, as usually happened when he discussed algorithms and linguistic analysis, and he laughed and asked if she was still listening.

"Huh? Sure, honey, you were just talking about ... about ... Hmmm..." She squirmed her way underneath the covers and then, to his astonishment, he felt her lips on his flaccid (but not for long-- What the hell?!?) cock. She gently stroked his balls with her fingernails as he grew his way into the back of her throat, and it wasn't long before her bobbing head had regenerated him fully and he was achingly close to coming again. When he did start his hips into serious fucking of her mouth, she met his motions with her own and swallowed each precious drop of his semen. He hissed his satisfaction through his teeth, and she drew her head back above the covers and without explanation fell immediately asleep.

Frank lay back, eyes wide with astonishment. Morgan had never given him head before, in the two years they'd been dating, but the fact that he'd been stroking her ears when she'd abruptly changed her oral habits was the real freakout because it meant...

... that book is for real. I don't know what it is, but it's not bullshit. It's something else entirely.

He was too tired to do anything but sleep, now, but he had changed his mind on taking tomorrow off. He stared at Morgan's mouth. The work was much too important to put off.

Had My design for breasts been solely for children's use, I would not have placed them so high up out of their reach.

-- Woman: The Owner's Manual, 14:19

Login could not happen fast enough.

He'd rushed out the door this morning, but had lingered a bit more than he'd wanted to because he was curious what Morgan would have to say about the last night's events. She rose a few minutes after he entered the shower and started brewing coffee, and by the time he'd dried his hair and put on a pair of pants she was frying bacon.

"Morning," he had ventured.

"Morning," she had shone back. "Did you have a nice time last night?"

"Absolutely. Did you?"

"Of course. Same as ever." She'd drawn forth a Zsa Zsa accent. "You've marvelous, darling."

"As are you." He had paused, not knowing how to put this. "What ... uh, I'm just wondering, why you did what you did ... at the end there."

She'd looked at him blankly for a second. "What do you mean?"

"What you ... did with your mouth."

"To kiss you, while we were having sex? Honey, don't I always do that?" General amusement at his confusion.

"Um..." He'd searched her gaze for any sign of sarcasm, or jest, and waited a bit for the punchline ... but it had not been forthcoming.

"Oh, was I snoring again?" She'd looked embarrassed, then. "Dammit, wake me up when I do that. It's bad enough I do it, you shouldn't have to suffer through it."

"O-okay," he had replied, and then made excuses for why he had to run off to work so soon.

It was evident Morgan remembered nothing of giving him head, though she apparently did remember the sex itself. Did the ear-stroking thing generate some kind of autonomic response, almost reflexive in nature? It hadn't seemed reflexive, it had seemed ... oh, who was he kidding? Even if it had been utterly mechanical and passionless, he'd not had a blow job in over two and a half years, and whatever she'd given him had felt wonderful. He certainly wasn't going to complain about it.

But he sure as hell was going to find out whatever else he could from the so-called Owner's Manual. He resolved to read it "cover to cover", if you could say such a thing about pages made of two-inch thick chiseled stone.

Much of it was pretty dull stuff involving how many yaks or sheep a woman was worth on the open market depending on her general appearance and skills. Blah, blah, blah ... fascinating reading at the time, he was sure, but very impractical unless he was seeking to revive the yak as a standard of commerce. Tablet 3 was where the document finally began to "put out", as it were:

... Short commands, easily understood by even the most stupid of Women, can be [presented?] to her with [assurance?] of success while boldly but not violently pressing the navel with one fingernail and circling her nipple thrice with another. This will prove useless if Woman has recently been purchased from a [foreigner] and not yet been [educated?] in your speech, so if you wish to partake of the fruits of My labor here, you should teach Woman to understand you. You will want to do this anyway in order to [ensure] she knows how you like your meat seasoned when she cooks your meals...

Interesting. He made the mental note to try that one out. "Commands", huh? He skimmed more discussion about how to get your woman to clean up the household bowls and urns until he found more of the good stuff:

... strive to use logic and reason to sway her thoughts. However, as Woman was created imperfect (as were you, [bozo], so let it not go to your head), oft she will not respond favorably to your words, especially at certain times of the moon. In that case you are permitted to use your influence on her, but be warned that the method is neither [permanent?] nor [far-reaching?]. Had I made it [either], you would forsooth mess Woman up entirely, and no doubt spoil her for the rest of your brethren in the process. And I wish [not to have to] hear the whining about it in prayer for years on end...