Font of Fertility Ch. 21

"OK," I said. "At some point, we need to just make the decision to trust people or not. Part of me wonders if that flying book incident that warned me not to trust anyone was just a red herring to keep me isolated. But we'll take it slow."

"Remember that Yaroslav's Prime, Anna," Lauren said and glanced at Annalise, "Or, I dunno, 'Other Anna,' wants to meet and apologize to us for the magazine fiasco. We don't know if she is trustworthy or not, but she's another place to start."

"There's also the dinner with Esmerelda," Lindsey pointed out. "That was a good idea, setting up another meeting with her. I definitely want to be there for that."

"We could do a family dinner," Stacey suggested. "Or, like, 'harem dinner' I guess. Try and humanize us to her, and maybe she'll be more open to being humanized back instead of a scary Seat."

"That's a risk, isn't it?" Annalise asked. "Showing her all the people closest to you?"

"It is," I agreed. "But it might be worth it. Stacey is right - she's weird, but I think she's spent a bunch of time only interacting with people who are centuries or thousands of years older than her. I still don't know how old she actually is, but the fact that her ghost-dad's skull wears a conquistador helmet makes me think she might have become a Seat sometime in the early 1500s, and Genghis Khan was supposed to have died in 1227."

"That still makes him closer to her age than we are," Stacey pointed out.

"But," Lauren said. "She's been the youngest Seat for all that time. She might be way more modern than the rest of them socially just based on her being the youngest."

"We'll figure it out," I said. "But it's another lead on information. The only thing I can really be sure of is that she's not the Seat who attacked me."

"What about Ndia?" Annalise asked. "If she's another Fertility seat, and the oldest one, should you be setting up a meeting with her, too?"

I frowned slightly, and Lauren shook her head. "I think it's best if we keep our distance from her right now," Lauren said. "Unless you all want to get an earful about getting pregnant as fast and often as possible."

"She's like another magnitude of power above me," I followed up. "Or two or three. I'm really hoping to wait a while before I need to go to her or Uwe. And Xi Zuang. I couldn't really get a good feel for them, and I think they're playing games on another level."

"Steep learning curve," Lindsey mumbled, pursing her lips in thought.

"That's almost exactly what Jerry said," Lauren smiled.

Lindsey flashed a smile at me as well. "Great minds," she said.

"OK," I continued. "So now you all know what's going on with the Council stuff, there's something else we need to talk about." The girls all refocused themselves. "Tonight we're meeting with Angela, and she's going to let us know if she wants to join our relationship. Before she says yes or no, we need to introduce you to her, Annalise, because she has a right to know everything she's getting into. But that also means we need to decide if we're telling her about magic or not."

"I already vote to tell her," Lauren kicked in quickly. "I think we should just have two kinds of levels for sexual partners for Jerry. Harem members and non-Harem members, and Angie is definitely joining the Harem and should know everything."

"I vote to tell her, too," Lindsey said. "But I'm biased."

Stacey sighed. "OK. Devil's Advocate - what if we tell her about the magic and it freaks her out? What happens then?"

"She won't freak out," Lindsey said.

"But what if she does?" Stacey asked.

"Annalise, what do you think?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know," Annalise said. "I don't think I-"

"Wait!" Lauren said. "Stop, stop." She got up from her chair, went around the table and hugged Annalise from behind, resting her chin on the curvier girl's shoulder. "You, my dear, are all the way in. You are in the Harem. You're one of Jerry's concubines. Your opinion matters and your vote counts. Don't you dare think you're less than us."

"Agreed," Lindsey said.

"Absolutely," Stacey smiled, reaching over and taking Annalise's hand.

Annalise opened her mouth for a second, and then closed it, and then opened it again, but was obviously still unsure of what to say. Lauren quirked her lips into a little smile and shifted her hug up to grab Annalise's big breasts and then kissed her full on the mouth.

"Stop overthinking it," Lauren said as she pulled away from the kiss.

"OK, OK," Annalise chuckled. "I get it."

"Good," Lauren said and let go of her after giving one last squeeze of her boobs, and then went back around the table to her seat next to me. "So, what do you really think?"

Annalise pressed her lips together and took a breath before answering. "I think there's a reason why we keep magic secret from most of the world," she said. "So telling people should be done carefully. Maya didn't know about me or our father until everything happened. Our brothers still don't know, and I don't know if I'll tell them the full story or need to make something up to make it more... understandable. They don't need to know. So this Angela woman... does she love you?"

"That's part of what we're talking about tonight," I said.

"If she is in, like really in on the full relationship, then you should tell her," Annalise said. "I don't know how you're going to do that without making it weird, but you should. If she just wants to stay fuck-buddies or whatever, then it should be fine not to tell her."

"I'd argue she already knows the weirder parts of our relationship anyways," Stacey said. "Lauren and Lindsey being step-siblings by marriage, and me being raised by Jerry's parents. Magic is just like... a bonus."

"Yeah, well, you took it pretty well when we told you," Lauren said. "We were worried it would go a lot worse."

"OK," I said. "So... if she does say she wants in after meeting Annalise, and then we tell her about magic and she freaks out, what should we do? Because I do agree she deserves to know at that point."

"Depends on the level of freak out?" Lindsey hedged.

"Let me put it another way," I said. "What's the line for what I do to fix things? Like, worst case scenario, I don't like the idea of it but am I... erasing her memory?"

"Yes, absolutely," Stacey said.

"That would be easiest," Annalise said at the same time.

"No way," Lindsey said.

Lauren stayed quiet.

"Wait, you guys are OK with that?" Lindsey asked.

"Well, not doing it lightly," Stacey said. "But he said the worst-case scenario, so I'm imagining her having a mental breakdown and running into the street screaming insane shit to anyone who will listen. In that case, yeah, I'd much rather her forget it happened and she can go back to her life none the wiser."

"I thought it was a fairly humane fix," Annalise said. "Even with something less dramatic than Stacey's scenario. Even if she just says no, she doesn't want to join the harem after learning about magic, she probably shouldn't be allowed to just walk out knowing about that stuff."

Lindsey grimaced. "I can see the logic, but the ethics of it... that's a slippery slope argument that can lead to bad things."

Lauren still didn't say anything, grimacing a little at the conversation but not adding in. I took her hand under the table and squeezed, and she glanced at me with an 'It's ok, don't worry' look.

"As the only person at the table, that we know of at least, that's gone through something like what we're talking about, I think it makes sense to use it cautiously," Stacey said. I had explained everything that had happened to her early on, and had repaired her memories - it had made her a little dizzy for a moment, but hadn't been anything dangerous.

"What do you mean?" Annalise asked, frowning as she glanced between me and Stace.

Stacey quickly explained what had happened between us, how I had panicked when I had seen her so emotionally wrecked after our dry-humping encounter. And then how I fixed it when she seemed ready and made sure she knew everything.

"I-" Annalise hesitated, turning to me. "I kind of hate feeling like I need to ask, but you didn't do that to me or Maya, right?"

"No," I said, knowing that the potential for that kind of thing would always be a burden on me. Anyone I got intimate with and knew about my magic would have that little, tiny nugget of a question unless they fully trusted me. "I never did anything like that with you or Maya."

"OK," she said. "I trust you."

"Thanks," I said, leaning over the table to grasp her hand.

"What do you think, Laur?" Lindsey asked.

"I think I'm somewhere between Stacey and Annalise," she said. "I don't super like the idea of it, but I think it's also an important tool to keep normie people and us safe. If Angie changes her mind after saying yes to the harem but no to magic, we shouldn't make her walk around with that in her head."

"Three to one," Lindsey sighed and looked to me. "What do you think, Jerry?"

"I think you all had good points," I said. "And I really hope I don't need to do it to anyone, but it makes sense for the same reason that putting a shield on George's magic was more humane than just killing him immediately."

"OK," Lindsey said. "Fair vote. Mind-alteration is on the table to protect secrets."

"So what now?" Annalise asked.

"Now someone better start having sex with Jerry," Stacey said, raising her hand. "Oh, look, I volunteered first."

"Actually," I said. "While I would love to start something with any of you, or all of you, there's something else we need to do while we're here."

All of the girls raised at least one eyebrow. "What's that, babe?" Lauren asked.

I looked at Annalise.

***---***---***

"What... the fuck... is going on out here...?" Maya asked as she opened the door to the master bedroom and looked out at what, I had to admit, was probably a really weird sight.

"Oh, shit," Annalise grunted, the fire jetting from her hands and feet sputtering out as her embarrassment took over her concentration, and she started to drop the five feet to the very hard floor of the Amplifier.

I lunged to try and catch her, which was mostly successful as she plummeted and crashed into me, both of us going to the floor but neither of us getting injured beyond some bumps.

"We're figuring out how to get your sister to fly," Lauren said to Maya.

"Yeah, I get that part," Maya said with a wide-eyed look. "But why is she in her underwear?"

"Other than that she looks fantastically sexy?" Lindsey asked with a little teasing smile. "Because her fire burns her clothes unless Jerry uses magic to make them fireproof, so it made more sense to strip down than waste magic. I thought she should go full monty, but she was too shy for that."

Maya looked from Lindsey to Annalise and I picking ourselves up from the floor, her sister still blushing hard. And then she broke into giggles.

"It's not funny!" Annalise shouted at her sister.

"No, I know," Maya gasped between giggles. "But also it kind of is!"

"Says the girl who just spent an hour masturbating," Annalise shot back.

That made Maya start blushing but didn't stop the giggles she was trying to hold in.

"Alright, let's try it again," Lindsey said, tapping her pencil on her notebook. "'Ironman Style' definitely gave you the best control, so we should try and develop from there."

"But I can't touch anything while I've got fire coming off of my hands," Annalise said.

"Well, focus on trying to get more force off of your feet, and just use your hands for directional control," Lindsey said.

"Fine, fine," Annalise said, standing back in the centre of the Amplifier.

"You good?" I asked her, putting a hand on her lower back.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said. "Thanks for catching me."

"Any time," I smiled at her.

She rolled her eyes. "You just liked that my boobs planted into your face."

"That was definitely a bonus," I laughed, and then quickly leaned down and kissed her before skipping a few steps back. "Alright. Count her down."

Stacey, Lauren and Lindsey all started counting down from five, and Maya joined in at three. At one, Annalise took a deep breath and closed her eyes to focus, and at zero she released a focused blast of fire out of her feet and started to rise off the floor of the Amplifier, leaving a blackened scorch mark below her.

"Holy shit," Maya said. "She can actually fly."

"She can actually, really fly," Lauren said, hugging Maya around the shoulders. "Your sister is pretty amazing."

Maya grinned and nodded. "She's my hero."

***---***---***

It was kinda funny, the issues that come up with secretly being one of the most powerful users of magic in the world.

The problem that arose late that afternoon wasn't some international crisis, a magical rogue running amok, or even a mishap with a magic spell. No, when we teleportaled back from the Sanctum, there was a much more mundane issue at hand.

"No, you cannot skip family dinner," Mom said. "And girls, your Mother is expecting you at home in about ten minutes."

"Awe, man," Stacey, Lauren, Lindsey and I all groaned in unison.

My Mom just rolled her eyes. "Get going. You can all hang out afterwards." She said it with a smile on her face but steel in her voice - there would be no arguing from any of us.

"OK," Lauren sighed. "Thanks for letting us know."

"We'll walk them out," I told my Mom.

"Be quick, dinner is on the table," Mom said.

Stacey and I walked Lauren and Lindsey back out the door. We'd been pretending to 'be out' together, which really wasn't that big of a lie since we had been out together, just not on the continent.

"We'll push back the Angie meeting," Lauren said once we were all outside. "Make sure she knows it's not a thing."

"OK, thanks," I said.

I ended up getting a quick kiss from both Lauren and Lindsey, and then they skipped into their car and got on the move so that they wouldn't be late to make an appearance with their own parents.

"This is getting complicated," Stacey sighed as we watched them pull out of the driveway.

"I know," I said. "Part of me feels bad not telling my parents about the magic, but the rest of me really, really doesn't want to know how they'd react to it all."

"What do you think would go down worse," Stacey asked with a little smirk. "The fact that we're having a whole bunch of wanton sex, or that you're dating four-soon-to-be-five girls?"

"Is that what we're doing?" I asked with my own teasing smirk. "Cause I thought you were my concubine."

She elbowed me in the side and laughed. "That's 'Miss Sexy Concubine Girlfriend' to you, buster."

I gave her a smack on the ass and darted for the door, and she chased me in threatening to pinch mine in return.

Dinner was a normal affair once we were all around the table, which was nice in a way but also made me wish 'normal' could officially include more people. My parents told us all about the party they had attended the night before - it had been a fundraiser that they had won tickets to, and they ended up running into a couple of friends-of-friends that my Dad knew through golfing. Them 'suddenly winning' tickets had me suspicious and a quick glance over at Stacey at the right time let me know that she and Lauren had definitely manufactured the 'winning' to make our own party happen. Not that I cared; my Mom had a lot of fun dressing up and spending the night in a fancy hotel, and my Dad got to network and hobnob and feel part of the 'cool club' for old people.

Then we had to make up some stuff about what we had done that night. Stacey talked about Jordan and a couple of her friends who had come to crash, and I said that Jay had been here with his Canadian girlfriend Clarissa. That ended up with me needing to dodge or bullshit through several questions about the Canadian Girlfriend.

Talking about Jay seemed to remind my Mom of something though, and as she was serving herself a second small helping of mashed potatoes she raised her eyebrows. "Speaking of your friends, Benji dropped by this afternoon looking for you. Is something going on with him? He didn't exactly look well."

"Oh," I said. "Um, I don't know."

"He wasn't here last night along with Jay and Lauren?" My Dad asked.

"No," I said.

"Don't tell me you two are still arguing about whatever happened last week," Mom said.

"Well, he hasn't apologized yet," I said. "That has to happen before anything else."

"Are you sure you aren't being stubborn, Jeremiah?" Dad asked. "No argument is one-sided."

I grimaced. "See, that's the problem. He probably thinks he deserves an apology, but I know that he's the one who screwed up. Big time."

"Well, what did he do?" Mom asked.

Now I had to swallow. "I'd rather not talk about it."

"Actually, Jerry is in the right here," Stacey said. "I know some of it, and Benji really did screw up, and I don't blame him for not wanting to talk about it."

That, of course, made my Mom want to know all the more about what was going on but between Stacey and my Dad she decided to let it go. I shot Stacey a thankful look across the table, and she reached her foot out under it and stroked my leg for a moment.

"Well, if we're not solving world hunger or Jerry's interpersonal relationships," my Dad said, "How about you tell us about your new place up at school, Stace?"

I almost choked and spit out the drink that I'd been taking a sip of. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

***---***---***

"So Maya is OK for the evening?" I asked as we pulled out of the Bed and Breakfast parking lot.

"Yeah, she's fine," Annalise said. "She's got the laptop and is catching up on some of her shows now that she can actually see. Jerry... thank you so much for healing her. I don't know what-"

"Anna," Stacey said from the back seat where she'd moved to let the 'new concubine' have the front. "You don't need to keep thanking him. He knows. Just be with him."

Anna flashed us one of her little smile-frowns and nodded.

"Can I be honest?" I asked as I reached over and took Annalise's hand in mine. "I know you've been through a hell of a lot, but I'm starting to miss the Annalise who showed up in my driveway with some grit and determination, and told me exactly what a shit I was being before your Judgement."

Annalise's jaw dropped a little as she looked at me in surprise.

"What?" I asked. "I like your temper. And remember, you're actually the oldest out of all of us. You've got the most life experience in the group. You've lived alone for years, making your way in the world as a welder and artist. We're all just getting started here."

Anna clicked her mouth shut and blinked her eyes a few times. "I've... God, have I been that bad?" she asked.

"No, hon," Stacey said, reaching forward from the back seat and rubbing Anna's arm. "Not bad at all. And we get that you've been through a lot. Jerry is kind of being a jerk about it because he's a guy; I'd bet your brothers would say something similar. You've just been sort of timid about everything, going along with things when you might have had a different opinion. This afternoon in the library was a good example; you only felt OK giving your opinion when we practically pulled it out of you."

"Timid," Annalise chuckled softly to herself, shaking her head. "I don't think anyone has ever called me that before."

"I'm sorry if I'm pushing you too hard," I said. "You really have been through a hell of a lot, and maybe you're not the same person after it all. And that's OK too. I just want you to know it's OK to... I don't even know what I'm trying to say."

"Don't worry about doing or saying something that we won't like," Stacey filled in for me. "You're one of us now, and we'll never stop wanting you even if we disagree about something."