Ridiculust Ch. 18

"Do you like it when I do this?" he heard Aphrodite ask, somewhat muffled. Jeannie moaned uninhibitedly, which was clearly an agreement as Roger quietly went up the stairs.

"Here's what I remember Roger doing to me," Jeannie replied breathlessly and again somewhat muffled, "when he wanted to get me off quickly. But this time, with magic." Roger had reached the top of the stairs and turned to the right to see through the open door. The bed was not in sight, as its head was against the left wall, but he had no trouble hearing the goddess make three increasingly louder cries, followed by a throaty moan and a bright flash of light in her colours, followed a few seconds later by a cry from Jeannie and a flash of light in her colours. Roger could feel the difference between them, with Aphrodite's feeling like a sweep of the summer sun and Jeannie's like a cool summer breeze as you wade in the warm water of a lake. He looked down and could see colours flickering weakly in his crotch, but even that energy was not enough to get him going. The tank was truly empty. Totally exhausted from the day's exertions, he turned to the left and went into the left bedroom, where he dropped his pack on the floor, somehow rolled onto the bed without peeling back its covers, and fell asleep almost instantly.

A few minutes later, after they had had a chance to freshen up in the washroom, the two women stood in the bedroom, naked and with hair mussed up and still emitting the occasional spark, looking at Roger's sleeping form. He was on his left side, as usual, and his face was totally relaxed and at peace.

"I don't know how he made me fall in love with him," said Aphrodite quietly, "but I have. In the past, it's never worked out well with the humans, but this time there aren't any of the other gods or goddesses around to sabotage things and make us miserable."

"I think you are just as human as I am now," Jeannie replied, looking at her, shadowy in the light that was coming from the open bathroom door. "I have no idea if I really am human or something else. Were we created right at the cellular and DNA level, or are we held together by some sort of magic?" At the goddess' questioning look, she added, "I'll explain that later. There is a lot for you to learn about our world. Anyway, this man here loves us both, and Sarah, and Debbie, and who knows who else. We don't have to compete for his affection."

"Right now, I don't feel like competing for anything. I just want to go to bed." Jeannie closed the curtains in the room and, after they had left, closed the door almost all the way, turned off the bathroom light in passing, and went back to the front bedroom with its messed-up bed. "How did you two manage to sleep in such a small bed? It's only a double, not even a queen."

"He inherited the frame from his grandfather," Jeannie replied as they got in, her on the left. "We had asked the same question numerous times, mostly in response to his complaints about my taking most of the covers." Aphrodite snickered as they snuggled into the comfortable mattress. "But somehow we never got around to replacing it."

"First thing tomorrow, we get a bed big enough for three." Jeannie didn't dispute this need. Fatigue rapidly overwhelmed them and they fell asleep, side by side.

At 3:30 in the morning, Roger's bladder woke him up as usual. Acceding to its demand, he stumbled to the bathroom and emptied it with a long sigh of relief. When he pulled up his pants and flushed the toilet, he realized that he was still dressed. He washed his hands, wandered downstairs to turn on the central air conditioner and then back upstairs and peeked into the front bedroom. Light from the street light outside filtered through the curtains, faintly illuminating the faces and hair of the two sleeping women. He smiled, feeling an inner peace that he hadn't felt for years as he returned to the bedroom, removed his clothes, pulled back the covers, and got in. Tomorrow, and for all the tomorrows that they had left to share, he had his Jeannie back at last, and if he'd somehow picked up a goddess in the process, he wasn't going to complain. His last half-waking thought was,

"Pun-powered magic and sex? That's ridiculust!"