Turn It Off and On Again

Richard woke on day four next to Ava, somehow taking up almost all of a bed that yesterday he thought could hold everyone. Her face was buried in the mattress, her arms and legs spread out like she was trying to push him out of the bed. Hopefully the Trident Cottage’s bed was bigger than the one that Helena and Hazel have been sharing, or Stella must’ve had some rough nights. One arm was stretched across him, pinning him to the bed.

He was just barely able to slide out of the bed and get into the shower. When he was done and getting dressed for the day, she was still in the same position. Maybe I should let her rest. He was glad that things had started to turn around after they got out of the cave. He hadn’t seen her that stressed before. He made a note to himself to try to mention to Luna later that Ava had wanted to discuss things together.

He stepped outside for the dining hall and his stepsister was standing outside waiting for him, in a greyish blue pantsuit. “Hey Hel, how long have you been standing there?” He asked.

She dusted off her shoulder from leaning against the post of his porch and got down to business. “Only a few minutes. This was about how long I expected you to take in between when we noticed you woke up and when you’d be leaving. Can you come with me to help Hazel?”

He followed along with her as she stalked back to the Arrow Cottage. “Did you give her your crawling transformation like she’d offered?”

“Yes, though I argued her down when she said she wanted to go the whole day trying to make it work. She tried to argue that she could do it if I did it two days ago, but I insisted I wouldn’t give it to her unless I could get you to help her. Here, I’ll let you in.” She opened the glass and brass door and let him in, only to stop him in the hallway. “Hazel, are you comfortable with me sending him in?”

Hazel replied from in the bedroom. “You can go ahead Sir, I’m just getting my jacket on.”

He went in as Helena told him she was going to freshen up in the bathroom and found that Hazel had somewhat misstated how “dressed” she was. She had on her pants and shoes as he’d expected, but most of her top half was missing. The top half of her shirt’s buttons were undone exposing her bra, barely covered by the tie she was hastily trying to loosen as he came in. Her suit jacket was lying on the bed next to her, and despite what she’d shouted into the hall it looked like she wasn't putting any effort into getting it on.

Richard blanched. “I’m sorry Hazel, do you need me to turn around?” He started to turn to hide the erection that’d been growing more intense over the week.

“No, you can look at me Sir.” She insisted, her voice taking more of the tone it had when she’d been teaching him to dance.

He turned back to her, trying to maintain eye contact as she started to cover up. “So you offered to take it for today?” He said, trying to appear nonchalant.

“I did. It felt fair, this is about the midpoint for the week.”

“I think I’ve figured out a solution to give permission that doesn’t open up any possible holes. I was trying to memorize it during my shower, are you ready?”

“Actually,” Hazel said. “I don’t need you to do your idea. Ms.Turner is going to get it back in just under twelve hours. Can you make it ironclad like you were going to, but only after sunset? I don’t mind if it fails a couple times before that.”

“This is very much not what she asked me to do Hazel. Why do you want it to fail?”

“I feel bad for what she’s going through. I just want to walk in her shoes a bit. Or maybe not walk in her shoes.” She tried to joke at the end, but she felt fail to land amidst his worry for her.

“If that’s really what you want then I can try that. You can walk while someone else is looking at you, and you can walk at night.”

Hazel put the jacket of her suit on and stood up. Giving him a light peck on the check, she went with him back to the hallway. “Thank you for helping me Richard, I do appreciate it. Ms.Turner and I still need to work on our plans for the day. I know this is kind of sudden, but she has something to talk to Dr.Petrov about and I think we’re both a bit nervous about it. Hopefully I’ll see you later.” He found himself being aggressively guided out of the Arrow House as he'd seen her do before with a pushy journalist that had started to ask questions about his stepfather once. He barely had time to return her goodbye before he was out the door and merely steps away from the dining hall.

Hopefully Hel’s alright. Even without the transformation, she’s not used to having this little control of things. He thought as he started to go into the dining hall.

When he went in, he found Aubrey waiting at the door and Luna was sitting at the closest table. Dr.Petrov was over at the closest table to Genet’s apartment, facing away from the door. Remembering both how badly he’d screwed things on day one and that this therapist had offered to help, he cautiously asked: “Morning Aubrey. How are you doing?”

“I…” She paused, then started again. He hadn’t noticed at first that she was wearing the red yoga pants that he loved and the little white shirt she’d been wearing the first time they’d met, when she’d been crying into a basket of laundry. “I’ve been doing a bit better since our night. Maeve’s been spending a lot of time with me, and Luna and I had a good conversation yesterday. Can we sit together for breakfast?”

Given what had happened, this was beyond his best case scenario. He’d been worried that she might be angry at him for cutting things off, or worse, that she’d pretend it hadn’t happened. He was cautiously optimistic. “Yeah, that sounds nice. I actually had something I wanted your help with that Ava and I saw yesterday.”

Luna chose that point to stand up. “I’ll get us all some breakfast. I think Aubrey had something she wanted your help with too.” She nudged both of them half a step closer before stepping away to the buffet table.

“What’s up?” He asked.

“I really hope this isn’t too much.” She said. She reached over his arms and wrapped herself around him. She leaned into him at the front of her feet and pressed her soft lips against his.

Aubrey Conners, +3 VP (Kiss)

He knew what he should do at that moment. He should gently push her away, tell her that it was a bad idea. That he’d just end up hurting her again. He should run to the bathroom and splash cold water in his face to help him think more clearly. Maybe Luna could talk some sense into him like she usually did.

But that’s not what happened. He only leaned away for a moment before returning her energy. He felt himself getting hard again in a moment and their tongues danced as he fell into the kiss. He heard a gasp from the buffet table that told him he should stop.

But he didn’t. He brought his right hand to her neck to help pull her in while his left arm snaked down. He traced her back and felt the blossoming fullness of her hips. She moaned as he pulled her lower half closer and she ground into him, feeling how stiff he was through his jeans. “Please, I need you.” She whispered to him as she lowered his hand from her hip to her butt.

Even through the haze of lust he felt swept up in, he recognized the issue. “Here? Luna and Dr.Petrov would see.”

That seemed to help her snap out of it too as she remembered where they were. “You’re right. Maybe we could fool around just a little more?” She asked, feeling him squeeze her ass.

“I-” He wanted to. He couldn’t. But why not?

“I’ve got everyone’s breakfast here.” Luna said from the table. Right. That was why. He and Aubrey finally separated and sat down at the table to eat with Luna and calm down.

“Cereal?” Aubrey asked. She was looking down at the mixture of oats, nuts, dried fruit, and seeds with disgust. “Where’s all the marshmallows? The sugar? Everything here is the same color.”

“It’s called muesli.” Luna said. “Felicia likes it.”

“Do they have any maple syrup up there?” Aubrey asked Luna.

Luna shook her head. “They have a pot of honey if you wanted to add that?” She offered. Aubrey left to go get it.

“I’m sorry I forgot about you.” Richard tried to apologize. “I know I keep saying this, but I’ll try to be more careful with Touch Base.“

“Dick?” Luna stared at him until he looked her in the eyes.

“Yeah?”

“I encouraged her to do that. I can live with my tf, I can tell that you enjoyed it and you really should be trying to have more fun.”

“But what if-”

“Remember our conversation yesterday? You need to trust that we can handle ourselves and treat us like adults. It’s Felicia’s day today. What would you do if she was interested in you?”

“She isn’t. Felicia hates me, I don’t know why she hasn’t fired me as her patient yet”

“Then let’s pretend she doesn’t hate you.” Luna said. “I know as well as you that you’re into her, at least a little from how you reacted the night of the transformations. If she was interested, would you hear her out?”

“Hey guys.” Aubrey said. She was carrying the pot that Luna had mentioned. “I couldn’t decide how much honey I wanted, so I ended up bringing all of it. You guys can have any if you want some.” She added a couple spoonfuls of honey, then stopped to watch Richard. “Do you like this?”

He waited until his mouth was clear. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had muesli. When my stepdad used to take us all to Switzerland for Christmas every year, this was ready before the resort’s staff finished making anything else.”

Aubrey looked down at her own bowl, the honey mixing in with the milk and bird food. “Maybe this is enough honey then.” She started trying to eat. It wasn’t very good and it still needed a lot more sugar, but she felt strange adding more now. “What did you want my help on?”

“There were these characters we saw on the wall of this cave we were exploring under the mountain. There was a green woman that ran away with a very dark man, an angry woman who was brown like dead leaves, and a man made out of golden light that was in between them. Ava and I didn’t know who the characters were, and we were hoping you’d be able to identify them.”

Aubrey narrowed her eyes. “When they ran away, do you know if they went down a hole? Did your brown woman only enter the story after the couple had spent some time together?”

He thought about the events of the story in the paintings. “She only entered after they’d had multiple scenes together, but I don’t remember anything where they actually were running away.”

“That makes it a little less clear, but I still have a strong suspicion. Did he feed her pomegranate seeds?”

“He fed her something, neither of us could tell what it was. There were these pomegranate seeds that Genet said she got permission from Stella to use in our dinner?”

“She fed you the pomegranate seeds?” Aubrey clarified.

“Yeah? This may be a silly question, but why does that matter?” He asked.

“Because it sounds like you gave me a description of the four main characters in Persephone’s central myth Hades runs away with Persephone, and Zeus forces a compromise after Demeter, Persephone’s mother, gets angry. It’s probably one of the best known greek myths, and I was planning to use it for my lessons on how the meaning of myths can change over time to reflect the culture.”

“Doesn’t Hades kidnap Persephone in that story?” Luna asked.

“In most versions. Persephone always falls in love with Hades, but in some interpretations it happens before they run away together, because Hades offered her a taste of freedom. But in both versions, eating some pomegranate seeds permanently ties her to the underworld.”

“Am I supposed to be Hades?” Richard asked

“Maybe, but it seems like you’re falling into the Persephone role better. Genet’s the one acting as Hades, since she kidnapped all of us like the story usually goes, and literally fed you pomegranate seeds.”

“If I’m Persephone, and Genet is Hades, where does that leave all of you? And where’s Demeter and Zeus?”

“I kind of feel like we’re all Persephone here. There might not be a Zeus and Demeter, if any of the symbolism from Genet was intentional. There’s no one else on the island with us”

“There’s Ata in the shop, but I get what you mean. It doesn’t feel like she’s capable of getting angry.” Luna commented.

As they were talking, Ava stumbled into the dining hall. She’d changed out of her pajamas and back into the dusty clothes she’s worn into the cave with him. She got two bowls of muesli and sat down at their table with them. They all tried to catch her up.

“They sound nothing like when they were in God of Battle.” Ava commented after Aubrey finished explaining the story.

“The what?”

“”God of Battle? It’s a video game series. There’s like twenty of them, most of them are about killing the Greek gods. Zeus was so consumed by paranoia he destroyed the world.”

“I see.” Aubrey had never heard of it. “In most of the Greek stories, they’re not much different from people, they just happen to have great power. Zeus wasn’t a perfect being like a lot of people assume when they hear the word god or the villain he seems to be in your games. He was a lying, manipulative philanderer and a man that tried his best to protect his family. He’s an ass, but even he has nuance.”

Luna stood up, grabbing her tray. “Do you guys mind if I go back to the room to take care of something? I’ll come back when I’m done, it shouldn’t take more than twenty, thirty minutes.”

“Everything alright?” Ava asked. “I can come help if you need.”

“No, you don’t need to.” Luna deflected quickly. “I’ll be back soon.” Luna dumped her tray off at the bussing station and left for her bedroom in a hurry.

“I hope she’s ok, that was kind of sudden.” Ava commented after Luna was out the door.

Aubrey tried to cover for her roommate. “It’s just for something we were working on together, she’ll be back soon.”

Richard got a buzz from his phone that made him drop it on the table. He picked it up with his tray “I should get going too, I need to get ready for later.”

“See ya.” Ava said.

“I’m looking forward to tomorrow!” Aubrey called out.

He wasn’t sure what she meant. But it wasn’t the strangest thing on his mind. He looked at the text from Felicia again.

Meet me on the beach after lunch, and make sure you bring your swim trunks. We’re finally going to settle this.