Demeter's Tempest

Unknown to any of them but well-assisted by Demeter, that splash on the wrist, Kelly's hand catching some and then going back to diddle on her clit, that put a surprisingly large and active set of tiny swimming flagellations right into an area they Well Suited to navigate.

Finding their path inwards as though guided to do so (hint: they were), they passed obstacles and shortly made a Fullness of the fertility Demeter had granted.

Kelly's whole body was tingling with the energy they'd exchanged, her center was full of warmth and as time passed that day, that warmth turned from excitement to fondness to caring to love.

Love feeds fertility. Fertility was Demeter's wheelhouse!

English-Classics Class

Delayed and later than he usually left from the more-distant arts wing, Kevin threaded his way through the crowded halls to his English class.

Far removed from him, Demeter watched, her hands idly twirling a discarded length of string from Terpsichore's harp. Terpsichore was a muse of dance and didn't pay too close attention to discarded strings, so it was easy for Demeter to get her son Dyonisus (God of wine, music, and dance), to pay a visit while Demeter tagged along for the ride.

The string, whirling, inspired a lot of weaving by all those in the hallway where Kevin was walking.

No matter what he did, it was nearly impossible to navigate without bumping into just about everyone he passed. At each bump, with each casual touch or squeeze-through, some tiny portions of the magic Kevin had gained from orchestra (and subsequent tryst) 'rubbed off'.

Being mortals and oblivious to such things, no one really noticed much beyond finding an odd sensation of having missed something important as it went by.

Kevin got to his class, a senior English elective called 'Classical Studies', only slightly after the bell. As punishment for arriving late, Dr. Benoir gave him some photocopied handouts as he passed by her desk. This again resulted in him again touching most of the people in his class.

There were only two males in the classroom, Kevin and Ted, due to the only other non-boring senior elective English course being "Literature of Football" and almost the entirety of that class being male.

Dr. Benoir was vastly overqualified to teach the class. She'd married her CFO husband while they were both at the Sorbonne (the 'Harvard of France', though the French considered Harvard to _almost_ be the 'Sorbonne of America'.) Her Stanford double undergrad was in Humanities and Biochemistry, and her doctorate from The Sorbonne in 'Tragic Humanities' focused on how the Iliad had influenced late-Medieval education as proved by the organic chemistry of the ink used in various copies and how similarities in those could establish lineages of the copies.

She spoke to the class. "These handouts are inscriptions on a Greek crypt - an above-ground grave with engraving on it. Crypt inscriptions usually follow a pattern."

The class groaned slightly, sometimes she could be boring.

"This formula here is a retelling of an old tragedy. It describes a battle that destroyed an entire countryside, killing not just local villagers but visiting outsiders there for a wedding. The guests, women, children, old and young together, burned painfully to death in the battle's forest fire."

Kevin was in the class. He felt the tragedy of that, so they did, too.

"A similar event happens in the Iliad, so it could be confirmation the Iliad story was based on actual events."

Along the way of her mentioning this, some students gasped at the horror of children dying, and how burning to death was beyond horrible as a painful way to die.

Dr. Benoir patted the air, "Calm down, people. Wartime. Meaningless deaths really frame most of the action in the Iliad. It's so common throughout the work that there's a lively debate on why the Iliad has so many people die so tragically. Regardless, the reason to read crypt inscriptions is to understand the context of the people carving it. They'd obviously lost some important people to them, and chose this selection, or possibly, this was what happened, and the iliad just sucked up the words to its larger whole. We don't know which came first - the tragedy, or the telling of a different similar tragedy. Largely, though, it doesn't matter. It's poetry, and it is used for a Vital societal purpose."

She was getting through to them, she could tell. "We use poetry like they did -- to 'celebrate'. But, it's important to know the word 'celebration' originally meant, 'to lament or mourn'."

The class devolved into some debate about how people ironically substituted celebration and lamentation for each other, punctuated by Dr. Benoir's storytelling and her notations of how nuance and alternate-readings of the same text was a perfectly valid way to write any story.

Kevin was getting wrapped up in the argument, but he looked down at the crypt picture. He'd learned Greek letters from physics class, so he tried sounding out the words. As he did, the letters rearranged in his mind to suddenly make sense, like he could read them just like he could read English.

As he did, he found himself suddenly laughing his butt off!

The class turned around to look at him, and he realized he was making a small spectacle of himself, so he shut up.

Dr. Benoir asked, "So, what's so funny?"

Croaking with laughter still, and not thinking straight because he was preoccupied with it, he said, "Ha! This... says, yeah, like you said, they died, but, then, it follows with, 'Leave these ruins, let rabbits have sex, or fear Artemis, he shall give you coins.' I totally thought of Monty Python, the dangerous rabbit bit they do. Fearsome Rabbit!"

As Kevin kept chuckling and the class laughed at him referencing rabbit-sex, Dr. Benoit was confused. "Where does it say that?

"On the stone, right there, under ..." Kevin said a few words and then stopped. He realized he was speaking in Greek, but it looked nearly the same to him as English.

Dr. Benoir gave him a side-eye, but decided to roll with it. "And, do you know who Artemis is?"

"God of ... wild things, right?"

"Yes, and protector of rabbits." Most of Dr. Benoir's mythology was from her undergrad years, but she remembered it well enough.

She continued, "Artemis 'giving you coins' means he will kill you and put you on a boat across the River Styx. The coins pay Death, the Boatman for the ride." She was smiling at him. Her estimation of Kevin as a solid-B-student who slacked but otherwise did okay, that had changed -- Irrevocably.

The rest of the class, too, were just starting to pick up on the fact that Kevin could speak ancient Greek, and even laugh at a joke in it.

Dr. Benoir turned to the class to keep them focused on the text. "So, is the crypt's lesson a lament to the dead, a celebration of the 'fecundity' of rabbits, or a warning that one should never piss off a God?"

Gillian, a lacrosse team captain with shoulders to match, turned to Kevin as if the whole conversation had shifted from Dr. Benoir to being centered on him.

Her movement changed how everyone was sitting, really.

Gillian said, "Maybe it's just saying, hey, here's a great place to watch Rabbits Do It." As the class (and even Dr. Benoir) laughed, she added, "Hippety-hoppety-humpety-pumpidy" and they all broke out laughing even more.

Something happened as she said that.

They were already mostly turned towards Kevin. As Gillian referenced humpety-pumpety, every single girl in that room got a strong and clear mental image of a male rabbit mounting a female rabbit.

The images in their minds was NOT abstract. The image was an inspired gift from Artemis himself transmitted through Demeter.

They saw quite vividly that male rabbit's penis, strong and straight, going into that female rabbit very, very fast, then spurting quickly into her.

Each girl in that class, as she got this flashed-image in her head, also FELT something. The core of the sensation was from the female rabbit's perspective. Hopping along, having a Deep Need, being in heat, wanting, looking, finding a Good Male to scratch that itch, to Do The Thing.

Finding it for that female was a win, a triumph, feeling him behind her and in her and moving, completing her need, making it Right again.

A collective sigh went through the room despite the laughter on the outside, and each of them also tracked that sensation right back to the image of Kevin, sitting there, laughing with them.

Kevin was... the guy smart enough to know ancient Greek for some unexamined reason? The guy with surprisingly good chest and shoulder muscles? The guy who they could almost, ALMOST, imagine on all fours, hovering over, down to an embrace, overtopping them and from behind, as they tucked, butt out and bent legs spread, wrapping their whole bodies, his front on their whole backs and pulling, his cock up from their base, and up, up, up their spread-legged wanting, wet, and wanton open spot, FILLING the NEED, making them whole, more whole than they were...

Dr. Benoir got those images, too.

The difference was, she Really Really didn't want those images. She was happily married. Coming to her senses, she had to get control of the class, so she immediately stood and walked around her desk, shaking her head to get the images to move.

Kevin's experience was different. He laughed with what Gillian had said, and was quickly lost in thought. His face went a little pensive.

This was just what Dr. Benoir needed. She wanted some resolution out of this, and Kevin's comments had been scholarly, kind of. She saw his puzzlement and asked, "Kevin. Something to add?"

Kevin straightened up, hearing his name, and said, "Uh, no, ma'am... Well, actually -- I was envious of the rabbits."

This got another laugh, but he could tell Dr. Benoir wanted something serious.

He added, "But, also? The rabbits, they had a Protected Field. It was protected by A GOD. Think of that. No predators, no humans hunting them, no worries, just a nice field, a comfy warren under those complicated rocks, lots of hiding places. Lot to be said for having nice places, like, national parks or something, where there's no hunting, just... nature. Doing the fun things... the fun way, I guess. Home, hearth, happy rabbit families, protected in a heartless world."

Snickers went around, but with the image he'd described, nature preserves, the power in him flowed out to them building an idea of protecting nature. This was what Demeter wanted, he knew, but he only realized he was satisfying her request after he'd said those things.

Because Kevin's words were not self-serving, the girls were filled with the waves of magic that went with them. It filled their hearts with caring for living things and a desire to protect them. Those same hearts (and lower bits, too) had also just been prepared, opened by the visions of deeply needful sex acts.

The latent heat of that connection hung between them and in them, all the students there.

In a very real sense, it was a magical twanging string of connection to fertility and joyfulness, back-and-forth flowing of wanton desire and love. With that tug, their hearts shifted and their minds found an overpowering clarity that they needed to do something to act on the things they were feeling. Deep connections between each of them and Kevin had been locked into place, and something Had To Be Done.

Demeter, watching this, for the first time in a long time, felt the inklings of a hopeful smile start. The first stages of this thing might be starting to go the right direction. But, then, she was realistic, too, she'd seen oh-so-many mortals just Fuck the Place Up. Kevin had a sexy vibe going, and he had blatant, but not too blatant, and it might be working.

In reality, though, the girls' hearts didn't need talk, blatant or not. They needed something Else. They felt it - a Growing Need.

Dr. Benoit felt some of this, too, but pushed it down, deep, where it wouldn't get out. She was a teacher, way too old for Kevin, and being attracted to a student wasn't done. Besides, she was married, and had 2 kids in college.

It was a hard set of thoughts to fight, and as the bell rang and he got up, she decided silently, 'Hmmm... he is tasty.'

Similar thoughts of 'how do I get that' were occurring around the room as they stood.

Kevin pulled his backpack up. The overhang of his sweatshirt would not help him once he stood -- he had a boner again, and again it was an almost-painful tent-pole in the sweatpants that would be obvious to anyone.

_Karin_ was sitting next to Kevin, and as he shifted, her watchful eyes found his package very much more exciting than a simple bulge. The way things looked, he wasn't just erect, he was Gifted.

She could feel that her underwear was already soaked and it looked a lot like there was a need she could fill. Leaning over, she tried to whisper to him, but someone else came up. _Darcy_, a social butterfly and all-around extrovert, stepped up and started to talk, but was interrupted by several other girls.

The circle around his desk grew.

Darcy wasn't to be outflanked. She turned and asked loudly, "Dr. Benoir, this Iliad thing, if it's important, could I have extra credit if I read it or did a book report or something?"

Dr. Benoir, rounding back behind her desk to pack her satchel, said, "I know personally several people who have memorized the entire work, in the original Greek. Yes. It's important. I did my doctoral thesis on it. So, if you, or anyone, wants to read it, I will give extra credit, say up to 10% of your grade, for a substantive paper and a good grade on a trivia test over it."

She seemed pretty proud of herself as well. One of her professors back in the day had given an Iliad Trivia Test, to ensure the students read it and not the cliff's notes. Anyone who actually read the book would get 8 to 12 of the 100 questions right. Not actually reading the whole book would generate a totally reliable Zero, but cheating would.

She still had a copy of that test. As an undergrad, she'd gotten 14.

Looking at the faces, it was pretty obvious they'd asked so they could find a path closer to Kevin. 'Well, what the hell,' she thought, 'give 'em what they want.' She added, "I'd recommend buying the book, reading it, and setting up group study sessions to review. There's a lot of material."

Immediately, the room exploded with conversation, girls shouting out who will be in what group.

Kevin, at the center and getting a fair number of these directly at him (and knowing he was going to be late to his next class) just said, "I have a suggestion."

The room immediately fell quiet.

Looking at Karin, who he knew was pretty on-the-ball, he said, "Karin, my number is ...", and "...Would you set up some study sessions, with subsets of whoever wants to be there, at someone's house? My ... my house isn't very big, we couldn't do it there. Maybe someone could do that, and, could you organize it? Maybe for Saturday? Sunday?"

Kevin's standing and question shifted the focus to Karin, which was definitely in Kevin's plan, since by getting up, he had to keep his backpack in front of him and shield his crotch.

Everyone's phones were immediately out and taking down his number, and besides, they all were missing their passing period and would have to run to their next class.

Karin, really, had no choice in the matter. She was beset by everyone, and had to give out her number to set up the group chats.

Kevin threaded his way out, bumping several chests on the way that were not-so-accidentally too close to squeeze past. All three girls that did this felt the back of his arm slide over their breasts and deliver strong, almost debilitating sensations to their nipples. They'd not intended that, necessarily, but their gasping was at least hidden by the debate with Karin over when or who would get to host.

Dr. Benoir saw Kevin leaving. She wanted a quick test, her suspicions were running wild.

With a seemingly careless tone she called out a phrase she'd read a long time before. It was different in the ancient Greek than the modern, which could catch-up someone who had just spent some time there.

The phrase was a greeting, something like, 'see you tomorrow', but literally it was closer to 'May your house-God Watch you'.

The return greeting she expected was something like, "[I pray-hope] that [name of God], finds me [honorable], thank you".

Kevin's brain connected the dots faster than his tongue, and unbidden from a depth of time the automatic words sprang to him in ancient Greek, the proper answer because different house-gods had different answers to that greeting, "Through Demeter we [must] honor [Earth's] Bounty."

Adding to that phrase, and because Kevin had seen a slice of the worry Dr. Benoir had in speaking to him, he added in English, "Be Healthy!"

Several quite important things happened as a result of these phrases.

First, Dr. Benoir was taken aback by the quick reply and watched Kevin's back as he fast-stepped into the hallway.

What the other students heard was gibberish and they ignored it, concentrating on the melee of getting organized for the study session.

Aimed over his back at Dr. Benoir, but meant really as a farewell to everyone in the classroom, the phrase invoked Demeter and linked her very tangibly to the magic flowing through Kevin and joined to the girls in that room. Quite literally, it joined all of them to the goals that Demeter had first explained, the enhancing the bounty, the fertility of Earth's life-force.

Since Kevin had not meant to gain any specific good for himself, and the phrase used his storehouse of power, that power had to DO something. What it did was exactly what the words meant -- to enhance the size of the conduit between Demeter and those there.

The power he directed in that invocation didn't just slightly change those students. His use of ancient Greek, the prompt and response, all of it opened a pathway.

That path wasn't small. It was a high-power 8-lane mountain-tunnel between their hearts and bodies, and the plane of Demeter's power. Functionally, underground rivers that idly meandered hidden from view suddenly had fire hydrant pipes connected.

This power didn't just idly flow. That kind of power doesn't flow. It exists to push outward on the darkness around it, give access, and bring up operating pressure as a surrounding background.

The questions in the room died down as the invoked connections expanded and filled them.

There wasn't much to say, they felt too odd to go on, knew that things would be okay, and just left the room, flowing out into the corridors to their next classes, on automatic. As they went, they bumped into others in the hallways, and tendrils of power connected them to those around them.

Calculus Class

Kevin's next class was Calculus III, a special college-credit course offered only recently since its teacher, Dr. Kemmer, had moved into their district.

Her wife was a well-to-do software engineer, and she'd always loved math so she decided to put her doctorate to good use and teach part-time at the high school. The students definitely got the better end of this deal, both from having an overqualified teacher and from the eye candy that was Dr. Kemmer, who tried unsuccessfully to disguise her beauty in the classroom by means of purposefully unattractive make-up and frumpy clothes.

It wasn't a secret that she was lesbian; a picture on her desk and another on her keychain was of her and her wife both wearing wedding dresses. The boys in the school knew they stood no chance with her, those girls that were lesbian knew that also but for other, more sane reasons, and the straight girls just kind of wished they were that good looking and that in-love, no matter who the spouse was.