Day One Thousand One Hundred And Seventy-Three

Dear Diary,

Pretty slow couple days.

Not boring in any way whatsoever. Just slow.

I think I've mentioned it before that people underestimate boredom, but I think I may have been mistaken.

Don't get me wrong, boring can be okay. When I've hit an absolutely overwhelmed point, managed to fix all the critical shit, and am lying there in a pool of sweat, or possibly less savory bodily fluids, I find boredom to be a pleasant relief. That's not to say boredom is always good. When I'm waiting for shit to go down, and nothing at all is happening, that's bad boredom. Mostly because I can't shut my brain off and go to sleep, let everything go into rest and recovery mode, but I can't do shit to distract myself either. I just gotta be on, but, like, 'on standby', for unsustainable lengths of time.

To put it another way, I hate waiting.

But the past couple haven't been like that. First the Autumn Equinox Revel, which was one big block party in eight different locations. Kinda interesting thing that I didn't think to mention the other day, but there were a couple... Plays, I guess. I wouldn't call any of them Shakespeare, and from what I saw they had a lot more in common with community theater than Broadway, even in New Amsterdam where I discovered my Temple is, in fact, on Broadway. But that's not to say they weren't entertaining. I watched, I laughed, I clapped, I dispensed thanks and hugs and congratulations on making it through the whole show without scrweing up.

I got a few invites to come see, uh, adult vignettes by some of those same performers. Yeah, apparently... No, I'm getting ahead of myself.

So yesterday was pretty cool, a nice afternoon long date with Saffron, which ended with the two of us in the Bedroom. I did notice that jewelry box on the headboard, but Saffron waggled her finger at me, which might not have worked, then distracted me with magnificent mountains of girl, which absolutely did.

As we lay there after, I remembered. "Oh, shit."

"Hmm?" my Kitten purred at me.

"I think tonight is the premier of a couple of those, uh, vignettes."

She just Grinned at me. "Did you want to attend?"

I tilted my head, thinking about it. "Kinda? Like, I'm not against it, and I want to support the arts and the artists, and I used to watch porn all the time, but it was usually either me being edgy by watching really fucked up shit or looking for something to lube the love tunnel before self-servicing."

"Well... I can understand your mixed emotions, but would you like to attend?"

"Uh... Did you want to?"

She pondered a moment or three, then replied, "i think it might be fun. Either to see what and whether you enjoy watching while you're not involved, to laugh outrageously if they do something atrocious, or to hold your hands still until they're needed for clapping if the show takes you that way."

"Uh..."

"So we could take you that way afterward."

I blinked. "We?"

She nodded. "I think it might be nice to have a night out with the five of us?"

Uh, ladies?

Absolutely. Marie answered immediately.

I've no objections, and I think supporting the arts and artists is important to developing the culture of the Alliance. Yeah, I think Tallulah rubbing off on me might have been part of the reason I thought of it that way.

I doubt I'd be very entertained, honestly, thought Siobhan, but before I could assure her she didn't need to, she thought, but I would be remiss... No, Tabitha, I would be remiss in my duties if I didn't, and I do so enjoy my duties.

I smiled. You could just say you want to go on a date with us more than you care about what we do.

I just did though?

I turned back to Saffron, "so, do you want to go?"

She just smiled at me. "I ask you a third time, Goddess, Goof, love, would you like to go?"

I smiled. "I think Siobhan and Tallulah's answers cover my thoughts on it. Yeah. Let's go!"

So after a quick mental conference we all got the kids fed, bathed, and in bed, then congregated in the Bedroom to get dressed. Yeah, kinda amused me, too, but the mirrors are really handy for that. We decided on Academy togs for the night, so Saffron, Tallulah, and I went in our Academy uniforms, Marie wore her Maid's outfit, and Siobhan wore her Healer's robes. When we stepped to the Temple of Love, we discovered that we were all of us kinda overdressed. Not that everybody was skyclad, but outfits ranged from workers getting off shift, to people wearing everyday nice clothes, to some folks who had left their work clothes at the coat check and gone inside wearing whatever they wore underneath. And yeah, some people just let it all hang out.

I realized something right then, something that I hadn't really understood before. People treated the Temple of Love, my Temple, like home. Yeah, some of them dressed up to come to Temple. Some of them dressed all the way down to starkers. But all of them felt like they could be comfortable, could be themselves. I really kinda stopped caring about being over or underdressed at that point.

The vignette, or I really should say vignettes, were... An experience. Like, there were five of them. I didn't realize until I did some thinking after the fact that there was one about Patroc couple, one about a Sapphic couple, one about a Straight couple, one about a threesome, although they did go the typical route of two girls one guy. Can't say they were doing a 'no homo' thing either, what with the male lead in that one being one of the dudes from the Patroc story. Dude had good stage presence, and looked good both above and below the belt.

Final one I had to hold my ladies back. Okay, I probably didn't have to, but it gave me an excuse to watch and think and appreciate rather than going off myself. Was a whole assed thing about a dude romancing a Maenad. Successfully. Yeah, the special effects for the Sparagmos were definitely more of the community theater thing, but the audience ate it up. The thing that really got me a little worked up was that they did not, in fact, have an actual Maenad actress in the play. Or two, because of course that was the Happily Ever After of the whole thing, the two of them doing the deed right there on stage as Maenads.

No Maenads. Just actors. In fursuits.

Not even really great fursuits, either.

Still, they were decent actors. Especially the dude who wooed the Maenad, who happened to be the same dude from the Patroc and the threesome. Pretty impressive acting for a dude to pull off a convincing Maenad O face not just with a full fursuit on, but as, y'know, a dude. I gave that pair a standing ovation, mostly because of that one dude's range. When they took their bows, everybody in the audience got a moment of stark raving terror as a subsonic growl rolled through the Temple theater.

The couple, who'd been in the process of removing their masks, froze. Very common reaction to Suddenly Marie, as my Murder Mittens loomed behind them, one claw gripping each of their forearms. "Don't."

The poor couple definitely had no idea what not to do, so they just froze.

Uh, Mittens?

She pulled the two actors into an embrace, then stage whispered, "Spoils Illusion." before carefully pulling their hands away from their masks. As they realized what she wanted and didn't fight it, she purred out, "Kudos. Kudos." and hugged them before disappearing.

That got them a whole assed standing ovation from the audience. Including my ladies and I.

Just in case it wasn't clear, the reason I didn't quite clock the whole 'something for everyone' aspect of the collected vignettes was that they were really little mini-plays. What men and women of culture would have called 'porn with a plot' back in the day. Or no, really, honestly they were more like little mini romance novels. Short plays, yeah, novellas in the 'short novel' sense, but each one had at least one or two characters who weren't there to fuck, they had some kind of conflict about the romance, although in the Sapphic one it was about both of them having to bear children for some reason, but neither of them being able to bear the touch of men. Like, kinda contrived, but still conflict

I mean, short plays written by a bonobo, because the resolution was 'fuck it out' three times out of five, with the other two having the fuck as the celebration of the conflict resolution. Hell, the Maenad one was even pretty pure, with the whole conflict being neither of them knowing if they loved the other enough for him to wind up a Maenad.

We'd gotten to the Temple a few hours after dark, and it was almost dawn when we headed home.

Meant to take everybody to the bedroom, but must have gotten my capitalization wrong, because we wound up in the Bedroom. Yeah, that's my story, and it is sticky as fuck, especially after we had Saffron and Marie reenact the earlier guy on Maenad scene.

"You sure you don't mind this?" I whispered to Siobhan, who'd taken up residence on my lap.

She shrugged, wriggling her back against me until I wrapped my hands around her. "Saffron is very handsome that way. Marie enjoys it. The thought of engaging Saffron like that is not appealing, but so long as I don't ponder that in particular."

"So what are you pondering then?"

"Lots of things. I don't have to wonder what it would feel like, since the three of you are all good at partial Shapeshifting. But it's still interesting to ponder. Also, I wonder what it would feel like to find that appealing. I wonder what it would feel like to stare at a man and feel lust, or even the kind of love that leads to lust. But mostly?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm wondering why I'm watching it from here."

"Huh?"

"Rather than beside our lovely Marie."

I turned to Tallulah. "Was that an oblique request? That sounded like an oblique request."

She smiled at the two of us, that arch smile my long tall Sidhe Lady did so well. "I rather think not." When I blinked, she clarified. "It sounded more like an oblique, yet still impertinent demand."

"Oh! Yeah, what should I..." I filled Siobhan's mouth with tentacle when she started to interrupt. "I don't know proper Concubine and Mistress etiquette real good. How should I respond to that?"

She just smiled, showing all her teeth, almost perfectly hiding her laughter. "Punish her, of course." Siobhan squealed indignantly through a mouth of tentacle. "By fulfilling it so thoroughly she regrets her impertinence."

I looked her right in the eye and said, "you've done that in the past, haven't you?"

"Absolutely."

"I dunno if Siobhan can take that much fulfillment." More cranky Siobhan noises until I said, "so I think you'll have to help her out, Junior Concubine."

She just stared right back at me and deadpanned, "oh, no. Whatever shall I..."

Yeah, no way for her to finish that with a mouth full of tentacle.

Like I said, slow day, but not boring.

Trying sorta hard not to think about how tomorrow is the last day of our Equinox vacation.