The Legend of Longhollow, Chapter 2
So I finally after a couple of years made good on my threat to make an icon of The Admiral. That's him this past spring, a few days before he got his yearly shearing, after which he looks like a goofus and is generally embarrassed to be seen.
But I'm not here to talk about my main llama. I'm here for this:
This chapter is rated:
For brief, strong language
Day Four...was a Thursday. Thursdays Are Significant! But we'll get around to that soon enough.
Ben woke up hungry on Day Four. Guess the whole awesome date and mindblowing sex thing depleted his reserves. So, having found a recipe for pancakes in a cookbook, he decided to give them a whirl:
"Bad idea, Ben," was my dismayed comment as the flames roared and spat.
"Shit, what do I do, what do I DOOOOOOO???!!!" Ben screamed, ignoring me and dancing around like a ballerina with bees in her tutu.
"Well, for starters, you might want to think about using that fire extinguisher."
"That what?" Ben yelled, still panicking and pirouetting.
"Fire. Extinguisher. Make fire go bye-byes."
"Oh," Ben answered. He stopped dancing suddenly, blinked blankly for a few seconds, but then he caught on.
He grabbed the extinguisher and made with the whoosh, putting out the fire while the radio rather appropriately played "Hot and Cold" in the background.
"Hey, that wasn't so bad!" Ben proclaimed, looking very pleased with himself, once the fire finally sputtered out.
"Yeah, except that now you need a bath something fierce. And maybe you need to think about cleaning that counter, too. And, you know, probably the stove while you're at it, now that it's all, like, scorched and stuff."
"Meh, I'll do it next week," Ben answered with a shrug. "Maybe."
Ah, slobs...So Ben ate his charcoal-briquette pancakes (Waste not, want not!), took a bath, weeded and watered the sickly weed, and then went for a hike, 'cuz he wanted to. And when he got back:
"Fabulous, Ben. Don't you know what that stuff looks like?"
"I do now!" Ben answered, scratching himself fiercely. "I think..." he added, pausing his scratching and looking like a confused dog.
Yep, fabulous. The rest of the afternoon was occupied with mundane stuff in between bouts of furious scratching. Mundane included unclogging the toilet and making himself a grilled cheese without burning the house down. Plus a long late-afternoon nap on the couch because the hike and the itching wore the poor lad out a bit. Either that, or he popped a Benedryl when I wasn't looking, and it zonked him out.
In fact, he napped straight through until...8PM. At which point, Ben learned of the Significance of Thursdays:
Poor thing. He didn't even see it coming.
"What the FUCK, Goddess?!" he growled, literally, when he was done sprouting hair.
"Ooops?"
"Ooops? Is that all you have to say for yourself?!"
"Well...you were so upset about the alien abduction thing that I didn't think I should tell you right then, and then...I forgot."
Ben growled again, impotently since he couldn't get at me to rip my head off, and then looked himself over.
"Well," he said, all resigned, "at least Jill said she likes hairy men."
"Atta boy."
"That wasn't forgiveness," Ben informed me, snarling and jabbing a claw at the ceiling, which I guess means that he was jabbing it at me. "Got any more surprises to unleash on me?"
"Um.......ummmmmmm.....Nope, none that I can think of at the moment."
"Good. I'm hungry. Now leave me alone."
"All right, all right!" I mea culpa'ed as he stomped off to the fridge and made himself a hamburger without burning the house down. I guess dogs gotta have their meat.
And true to my word, I left him alone, let him do what he wanted to do all night without any interference from me. And what he wanted to do was mostly play games, surf the web, and chat on his computer. Plus a little howling here and there, off and on. Plus cleaning up the mess from the clogged toilet and doing some other autonomous cleaning(!). And last but not least, taking a nice, hot bubble bath. After the bath -- which he actually did first, once he finished his hamburger -- he decided he didn't need to wear clothing, so...No pictures for you! :)
But what with the fire, the poison ivy, and the unhappiness with the little werewolf surprise, I'm gonna call Day Four a bad one. I guess there had to be one sometime.
_____
Six AM rolled around eventually, and Ben returned to normal. Sitting at his computer afterwards, he stopped what he was doing and said, quietly, "So. Thursdays."
"Thursdays," I answered, also quietly, since I knew he could only be talking to me.
"Just answer one question for me?" he added unexpectedly.
"Anything," I answered, sincerely.
"Was it my decision that I come here, or was it yours?"
"It was yours, of course," I answered immediately and sincerely. "I'm not a monster, beloved. I don't want to make you do anything that you don't want to do. My job is to protect you, to care about you, and to give you tools you can use to make yourself happy."
"Well, yeah," he conceded. "I can see that. I mean, you gave me this house and everything."
"And it isn't as if your situation before was, you know, screamingly awesome or anything."
"And this is better?" Ben snorted back. "Completely alone and turned into a...a...thing by aliens? Talking to a voice in my head that, if you hadn't made a house appear out of thin air, I'd say was just a symptom of schizophrenia?"
"Are you lonely, Ben?" I asked sympathetically instead of answering his questions.
"No," he answered. "Yes. Maybe. I don't know. Yes?"
"Believe me, I understand loneliness, Ben. It's lonely at the top and all that. But you know, Jill really likes you," I pointed out to him. "You should call her. Invite her over. See what happens."
"Maybe later," he answered with a sigh, and went off to have another bath -- He really likes them, apparently --and then went out to tend to the weed, which earned him a bronze badge in gardening. In the meantime, I gauged his wants and needs for the day, discovering that after breakfast yet more studying was on tap. Yippee.
Except! Ben apparently decided to take my advice after all because he made an ACR Booty Call to Jill. Yay! So, some flirting, a mutual fall-in-love, and a hot, sweaty, underwear-clad woohoo on the couch later....Ben decides it's time to get serious. And that he is, indeed, lonely and that he is, indeed, in love with Jill. So:
Isn't the hopeful look on his face adorable??????? Wasn't so sure about the look on her face, though...
But she says yes! And Ben's all ready to take the next step right away but...
"Hold it there, buddy! The Third Commandment: Thou shalt not marry on thine engagement day."
Ben sighed and, since Jill was still busy admiring her ring and not paying attention to him, he muttered, "You and your stupid rules."
"Oh, for the love of me!" I answered. "You can get married tomorrow! OK?"
"OK," Ben grumpily sighed back.
So, he and Jill settled for lunch together -- More hamburgers that Ben didn't burn -- and talked about the engagement and their plans, and then they spent the afternoon chit-chatting and flirting and smooching in a general state of gooshy togetherness, until the evening fell and Jill needed to go home to get her things together and her affairs in order in preparation for the Big Day tomorrow.
After she left, Ben napped for a bit, since he hadn't gotten any sleep the night before, and then when he woke up he settled in for that studying he'd wanted to get done earlier, and I could've sworn he hummed "I'm Getting Married in the Morning" while he studied, too. At the very least, all he could think about was Jill while he was studying. And he studied cleaning, as it turned out.
Which is a good thing because the house is a flaming mess, with that nasty dirty counter, the bed unmade, a dirty, scorched stove, fly-encrusted plates all over the place, books strewn all over the living room floor, and questionable water from a clogged toilet all over the bathroom floor. Oh yeah, Ben's definitely a slob.
Still, when all is said and done -- Patching things up between Ben and me and him falling in love with and getting engaged to his hot, redheaded love -- I've gotta say that when Day Five endeth'ed, I called it very good, indeed.
______
Ben woke up in a fabulous mood after a night of dreaming about Jill but with a full bladder, an empty tummy, and a want to go on a hike. I guess he needed to calm his nerves or something. So, we took care of those things, and when he got back from the hike:
Oh, for the love of me! He still hasn't figured out what it looks like!
Then, once the weed was tended to for the day, it was time to fulfill a commandment. The Fourth Commandment, specifically: Thou shalt clean thine house on Saturdays, including doing thine laundry.
Well, except that Ben can't afford a washer/dryer at the moment, because he has a whopping $76 to his name. So unless Jill brings a good amount of cash with her, he'll have to make do with stinky clothes. However, he can clean up the fly-encrusted dishes and scrub that nasty counter and wipe the crud out of the kitchen sink and clean the bathtub and the toilet and mop up that nasty water on the bathroom floor and compost the fallen willow tree leaves and the old newspapers lying around and put away the books and---
Well, let's just say that it was many hours before the house was ready for the Big Event, especially because Ben had to stop every other minute to scratch. And by "Big Event," I don't mean getting married. I mean, "My Goddess, there's a woman moving in!"
After the cleaning and also after a much-needed bath and a leftover plate of spaghetti...Finally, it was time.
When Jill arrived, just after sunset, Ben went out to greet her.
"So, uh..." he asked of his beloved. "Where do you want to do this?"
"Well," Jill said, considering, "there's no worship hall and no town hall so...Um, here in the driveway?"
"Works for me," Ben answered with a grin.
And so it was...
You know, who needs a priest(ess) or a Justice of the Peace when you can be married directly by your Goddess? And so it was. And it was very, very good.
And look! She brought cash:
But, um...Not much. Guess it's a good thing that the weed should be ready to harvest soon... But there was enough for a washer/dryer, at least!
So, while Jill settled in and took care of some wants/needs, Ben made some spaghetti for his brand-new wife.
Ah, their first meal as spouses...
Ain't it sweet? Of course, Ben had already shoved all his down his gullet by the time Jill got around to sitting down. Such a pig.
After dinner, Jill cleaned up the kitchen all on her own(!), and then quit her job that she'd had as a drive-through clerk at a fast food joint in her old hometown. She's not yet sure what she's going to do now to keep herself occupied and make some cash, but she's sure that something will come to her quickly...
In the meantime, she's wide awake and Ben's crashing, sooooo...naptime for him. While he naps, Jill goes shopping online for a little something-something to commemorate her marriage. She chooses...
...this? Well, I guess it goes to show that she's got a unique sense of humor...
And once Ben awakens from his nap...
Looks like they really like that couch, huh?
"There's a perfectly good bed upstairs, you know!" I remind them.
"This was closer," Ben answers.
"What?" Jill asks, confused.
"I'll explain later, honey," Ben assures her, going back to business.
And so they do their thing, but...No baby chimes. Just as well, really. I'm sure they'd like to have some time to enjoy each other before they have to deal with that.
After the fireworks, Ben wanted a bath and his bed, so I let him have both. Jill, on the other hand, was still wide awake, so I let her go about her business, letting her do whatever she wanted, getting to know her without intrusively prying into her skull. Seems that when left to her own devices, she'll chat online, think about and heartfart over her new husband, play computer games, clean stuff...and get happily naked at the drop of a hat. But I like that in a person.
Eventually she did get sleepy enough to sleep, so Day Six endeth with the happy newlyweds snuggled up in bed and, again, I have to call that Very Good.
And with that, we're done until next time. Except here, have Jill's stats, which even contains a bit of a spoiler, OMG!:
