Chapter 8

"Susan, kiss your man and then go prepare yourself." Jane commanded after they had arrived.

Susan complied. Ron seemed complacent.

"Sit down, Ron." Jane said, after Susan had left to bathe.

Ron sat on the sofa, admiring the house.

Jane poured a shot of scotch in a glass and set it by him. She poured herself one.

"Okay, I guess the place to start is at the beginning. I am ... the High Priestess of the Power of Lesbos, keeper of the secret works and guardian of the Rod of Sappho." Jane said.

"That's quite a title." Ron chuckled.

"This is no fucking joke!" Jane flared at him.

Ron seemed taken back, he sobered and nodded to Jane.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to indicate I thought it was funny. I know from experience with Susan that this is serious. I won't interrupt again." he said.

Jane seemed to nod to him.

"Alright. From the dawn of the creation of the world -or of men, I guess- there is a secret that has been handed down from woman to woman. The last keeper of that secret, was the lyrical poetess Sappho, who lived around six hundred BC ... Now before you ask how she could pass it to me when she lived two-millennia ago, I stumbled on information that led me to where it was dormant. The secret is two things. One is a power that is passed on from woman to woman. The second part is the knowledge of certain skills which will allow a woman to safeguard the power. She can -as you have witnessed- enlist an army if need be to be at her beckon call. This gives her a tool to help her protect the power from being lost. It gives her protection from a male dominated race.

"Part of the knowledge, is how to construct an artifact that is used as a tool to pass the actual power from woman to woman. This has been given the name the Rod of Sappho. Probably because she was the only one who chose to name it, or she renamed it after herself, I don't know which. Anyway she named it after herself. She named the power after the place of her birth, because that's where she received it from another woman.

"You know of the term Lesbianism, applying to the act of women making love to each other. The reason you know of that, is because Sappho made no secret of her doing that. In fact she was a celebrated and greatly revered author of great talent. She broadcast the fact of her loving women in her literary works. Her reputation has descended down through the century's until the name of the place she lived is synonymous with women loving women.

"Fact is, I think it got a bad rap. But that's neither here nor there.

In times past, women loving women was an acceptable thing. Back then guys loving guys was as common place as men and women loving each other. At least in ancient Greece. I don't sit in judgment of that fact, I just accept it.

"Anyway. Women loving women is part of the process under which the power is passed on. The rod is placed inside the woman's body. It's a long process involving many steps. But one of them, the one that concerns you and Susan, is the fact that part of the process of transference of the power, must be made to a virgin. The process itself takes her maidenhead. In order for me to pass on the power before I die, I have to transfer it to a virgin.

"Susan is my understudy. If the rod accepts her though all the stages, she will become the next High Priestess. She will then have to pick her own successor. And so on down through to the end of time, when the power will be needed for something majorly important. I don't know what, nor do I wish to know. But I do know that it is important enough for countless generations before me to have given their whole lives to it. That -and what I know of the power myself- is good enough for me.

"Susan seems to think that it's good enough for her too.

"The dilemma she has, is the choice between the possibility of becoming the next High Priestess, or of giving you her virginity. That's why her whole soul is in anguish.

"She loves you. But she believes in the cause too. That's what she meant when she said that it was a bigger question than choosing between me or you.

"It is a bigger question. I'm telling you all this because I know you love her too. You can make the choice easier on her. Not by choosing what she will do, but by loving her no matter what her choice is.

"Now, back to how I got the power.

"To safeguard the power, if a High Priestess finds herself in a position where the end of her life is near, and there is no worthy recipient to accept the power, she may transfer all the power into the Rod of Sappho. She should then secret the rod away in a safe place.

"When the rod perceives the presence of a worthy recipient for the power, it will call to them, not in words, but by guiding and driving their actions until they find it. Then it will take them and transfer the power into them.

"The recipient of this type of transference must be a woman with an empty heart. Whereas the recipient of a live transference must be a woman of a pure heart.

"As for myself, I stumbled over information about a great secret, that was all. It didn't mean a thing to me until my husband was killed. Then I became a suitable recipient. I had an empty heart. It couldn't have been emptier. I was only the shell of a woman.

"The power fills up that emptiness. It replaces it with joy. That's all I can tell you about that.

"Anyway. Once I became a worthy recipient -the first in over two-millennia, largely due to the fact of religious repression of lesbianism- the information I had viewed suddenly came back to me. It made sense. It told me that Sappho had not died in exile in Sicily, but rather, here, on the North American continent.

"She enslaved a mighty sailor whom she drove in her search for a worthy recipient of the power. She drove him until they were caught up in a storm in the middle Atlantic. They drifted at sea for months living on raw fish, turtles blood and rain water. The man was eaten by a shark while he was fishing.

"Alone, Sappho drifted onto the coast of South America. She didn't speak the language and had no way to defend herself against the native Indians of the land, except the power and the knowledge to control any man to do her bidding. She enslaved several natives and continued her search.

"Sappho walked from South America to Santa Cruz, California! She found no worthy recipient, as she could find nobody she could teach the knowledge to. Nobody spoke her language.

"She was getting old, and I mean old by then. She lived to be one-hundred-thirty years of age. I think that the power had a lot to do with that. After a few mistakes that aged me pretty bad, I haven't hardly aged at all since I got the power.

"Anyway, Sappho managed to communicate well enough with her slaves to have them roll out some silver leaves to etch her knowledge on. She wrote it in her own language, ancient Greek -Ionian, actually- then she transferred the power into the rod and hid it along with the book she had written.

"Then she died. Alone and helpless, thousands of miles from her home.

"After my husband died, the power called to me. Not in words, but I became obsessed with finding the secret power that I had found rumor of.

"Once I figured out that she had died here, it wasn't that hard a task to follow the directions to where the power was hidden.

"I spent three months of my life camping out and wandering the mountains behind Santa Cruz, California before I found a particular sign leading to the power. I followed the directions, exactly as written. A shaft of sunlight at exactly high noon led me to the exact location.

"Digging out a large flat rock, I found a chamber beneath. The chamber was sealed with beeswax.

"Inside I found her book, the Rod of Sappho and a couple of old pots full of grain and corn.

"I left the pots for the archeologist to ponder and took the book and rod back to my house. I put them in my safe and then took a long hot bath, as I had been in the woods for several weeks in a row that time. Then I went to bed.

"When I awoke the next morning, the rod or pieces of it -because it was broken- were inside my vagina. It scared the shit right out of me. As there was no sign that anybody had been in my house. The doors and windows were locked from the inside.

"Anyway, I took tracings of the metal pages and traveled up to Berkeley, leaving the rod and the book itself in my safe in my home. I started the long process of translating the book into English.

"When I read the first part of the book, I started to get scared. I thought it was all a hoax too. Until I read about the knowledge that Susan used on you last night. I was lucky enough to be in my motel room when I tried it out on myself. I slept for a solid twelve hours afterwards. It also told me that it was no bullshit.

"Rather than continue my translation at the library in Berkeley, I bought my own books and sequestered myself in my home, at that time in Pacific Grove, just South of Montery. I repaired the rod sufficiently that it wouldn't injure me and continued my translation while I began the transference process. Following the instructions that were contained in the book.

"The whole process took three months. During that time I hardly stepped out for a breath of fresh air or to buy groceries.

"By the end of the transference, the rod was now inert once more. I now contained the power myself.

"I finished my translation of the book the afternoon of the night I spent my last session with the rod. When I was done, the rod was broken once more. I spent a full night in constant orgasm and my muscle contractions must have broken my glue joints. I was pretty torn up inside myself.

"Anyway. Since then, one of my actions has been to reconstruct the rod. So I can pass along the power to the next person.

"It seems likely to me that that person will be Susan if she chooses to be. That's the choice she now faces.

"It's no detriment to you that she has a dilemma. In fact I think it's the greatest compliment that she could possibly pay to you. Because the power of Lesbos is no joking matter. It's a power that people would kill to attain. It's a power that I have no doubt the rod would kill to protect.

"The rod itself is a tool, an artifact. Separated from the power, I think it would be just a very pretty ornament. But combined with it, it has the power to communicate the will of the force to those who come into contact with it. It facilitates the transference and even selects a worthy recipient. It will reject -and has rejected- an unworthy recipient.

"Part of the process of transference, is instilling a part of the power to the candidates. Depending on how each step of that process goes, will determine if the recipient is worthy to go on to the next step. The rod itself judges that, I have no control over it.

"If the recipient makes it to the sixth level -or half way- then it takes her virginity. That is no guarantee that the recipient will even pass the next level.

"One of Sappho's disciples made it to the eleventh level. She never said whether or not she failed there, or Sappho was prohibited from the final transference by her exile. I suspect the later, as the final transference takes a solid three month interval.

"Anyway, those are the facts.

"If I didn't love Susan so dearly, and know with sureness how much she loves you, then I wouldn't bother telling you this information. Fact is that I could wipe it from your brain right now, but it would leave you a vegetable. So I trust you will be discrete about my trust in you." Jane concluded.

Susan had joined them part of the way into the story, she knew part of it, but hadn't known all that Jane or Sappho had been through ... She wore a light satin robe and sat across the room from Ron.

Now he looked up at her.

"I'm sorry, love. I didn't understand." he said.

"You believe the story?" Susan asked.

"Actually ... I do. For several reasons. One, what you did to me last night. You could easily enslave an army with that knowledge. The other reason, is Jane's telepathy. There was no question about that. I heard it quite clearly in my head. I realize that those aren't very noble reasons for believing. Not like just having faith in Jane's words. But they are certainly convincing enough." Ron said.

"And how do you feel about it, now that you know the choice I have to make?" Susan asked.

"I think I would be the most selfish fool on the planet if I opposed you. I gladly relinquish any hold you may feel I have upon your virginity. I will love you no matter how you choose." Ron said, starting to get up to move to Susan.

"Sit down! Susan is clean! She mustn't touch you right now. She has a question to ask of the rod that has a large bearing upon this whole subject.

"She feels that she was indiscreet last night when she used her knowledge in example when you laughed at her. She also feels that she revealed too much to you and that the rod may not deem her worthy to continue to the next level, which would be her sixth and take her virginity if she chose to go on. I have suggested that she consult with the rod on the specific question of whether or not that will exclude her from going on. If it does, then this is all a moot point. If it doesn't, she still has a choice to make. But lets find out first, shall we?" Jane asked.

Both Ron and Susan nodded.

"Susan, I take it that you don't object to Ron observing your nudity?" Jane asked.

"No. Not in the least. If there's one thing I've learned, it's to be proud of my body." she replied.

Ron beamed at her. He had the wisdom to keep his mouth shut.

"Ron, move down into this chair and don't move." Jane said.

Ron complied.

Jane took the key from around her neck and unlocked the cabinet.

"What you see, is only an outward symbol of security. The rod will protect itself. The locked cabinet only keeps innocents from injuring themselves." Jane said.

Ron nodded.

Jane stood aside and drew the curtain.

"Behold the Rod of Sappho!" she said.

Ron was spell bound.

"Susan, as I am unclean, take the rod yourself." Jane instructed.

Susan stood and dropped her robe. Like a goddess she proceeded forward and reached into the cabinet. The rod was glowing much more brightly than usual. The effect was not from the LED inside of it, rather the glow emanated from the entire rod. It continued to glow even brighter as Susan removed it from it's perch. She took it to her bosom and the rod glowed like an arc lamp. Tears came to Susan's eyes. They were tears of joy.

"Cleans yourself. Both of you." Susan said.

Jane mutely took Ron's hand and drew him away. She guided him into the bath and stripped off her clothes without thought. Ron started to follow her example.

"What does this mean?" he asked.

"I don't have a clue. The rod commanded it. I've never seen it glow like that, not ever." Jane said, drawing the bath.

She directed Ron into the bath. The magnitude of the moment seemed to negate any effect their nudity had on each other. Jane carefully scrubbed Ron's whole body and her own, having him scrub her back. He took it like a man when she washed areas on him that were downright personal. He did his best not to look when she did the same to herself.

After the soaking Jane opened the drain and turned on the shower. She had him rinse thoroughly, before she did. She stepped out and handed him a clean towel. Using one of her own. She dried her body totally and then blow dried her hair. Ron followed her example. She rinsed off her hand where she had touched things and had him do the same.

Finally Jane directed a nude -but clean- Ron back into the living room. Susan sat on the floor with the glowing phallus clutched between her breasts. A look of joy upon her face.

"Sit." she said, "In front of me. Both of you."

They sat down on the floor, one just off of each of her knees.

"The rod has granted a special favor. To a man of pure heart. The favor, is that it will reveal what is in our hearts to each other. All of us. We shall all be aware of the feelings that we feel for each other. So if you do not wish your heart to be revealed, speak now." Susan said, looking between them.

Ron was a little nervous, but he loved Susan enough he was not afraid. He nodded to her.

Jane wasn't the least bit nervous. She was awed! Nothing of the sort was ever recorded by Sappho. Perhaps something similar had happened in the past, before writing, when it had all been passed by word of mouth, or perhaps the record of it was lost. But this was all new to her. The rod glowed like a miniature sun, It's wavelength purer than the purest sapphire. Just a shade different from the LED within it, which was now pale by comparison. She nodded to Susan.

Susan reached out her hand to Jane and she took it, immediately feeling the joy flowing though the girl. Susan guided her hand to the phallus and Jane clasped her fingers around it, feeling the depth of Susan's love for her. Susan kept the hand she had guided Jane with on the phallus as she reached out her other hand to Ron. He shakily placed his in hers. His body seemed to jerk from a shock and Susan smiled as she drew his hand to the phallus.

When Ron's fingers contacted, the three of them felt the essence of each others emotions.

The feeling grew until it encompassed their beings. Eyes open or closed, made no difference. Closed, the blue glow remained a point of reference in their minds. Open, it almost burned the retina on reflection from their faces. The feelings grew until they were overwhelming, the rod glowing brighter by the moment.

None were aware when the lights of the house dimmed, nor when the lights of the neighborhood followed, and then the city, and then the Western United States dimmed out.

The only glow on the entire Western half of the country was a sapphire blue light leaking out of the curtains of Jane's house. Finally the blue glow faded to the single LED within the rod. The house lights coming back up as the rod dimmed.

Susan replaced the rod into it's stand. She was shaky upon her legs. She gave it a last affectionate stroke and the LED inside seemed to glow a bit brighter in response. She drew the curtain shut and closed the cabinet, locking it. She took the key and again placed the chain around Jane's neck.

Jane was complacent. So was Ron. In fact they were for the moment speechless. Susan sat before them and grasped each of their hands. The two of them looked at her, then at each other. Their other hands joined completing the circle.

They were one. Not from the joining of their hands, which was but a symbolic gesture, but from the images of each others hearts that were etched indelibly in each other.

"So, who's going to clean up that mess?" Susan chuckled.

They had each experienced an incredible orgasm. The results of which could be seen in a sticky mess between Ron's legs.

They didn't hear the news until the next day.

If any of them had any doubts at all over the power of the rod, they were made perfectly clear. The entire Western grid of the United States had blacked out. Like the great East Coast black out of the Sixties. All the energy in the grid had been sucked up. It had lasted about forty-five minutes.

The three of them had experienced no concept of time during the encounter. But it was obvious what had happened. They hadn't noticed the lights going out at all. The period matched exactly the glowing of the rod.

Jane had mildly wondered if they were all dead from X or Gamma-rays and just didn't know it yet. But no, the rod wouldn't have hurt them. There was no malevolence in the rod whatsoever.

Maybe it just took that much energy to get through a mans defenses around his heart.

Susan sat at the breakfast table, drinking a cup of coffee and reading about the big blackout, fully aware of what had caused it.

"And where were you until all hours of the night last night? With your precious Jane?" her mother asked, waspishly.