Exercise in Futility - OTA - Backdated to April 24 Dawn

[st_arknaked]

He was deep in the jungle when the warm humidity became cool and crisp and the dark earthy smell suddenly held a hint of salt and sea. Midnight became brighter, the sharp sliver of new moon suddenly large and ripe and more than half way to full.

It disoriented him, the wolf immersed in the hunt and the night and the man deep within who registered the shock and then the anger as he shifted back to human form and recognized where he was. The far outskirts of the world of the inn was dry and spare and seemed neverending until you found yourself dumped back where you began and he knew with the awareness of an animal that where he had been was a long way off.

And so were his pants.

He swore viciously, not sure what made him angrier the loss of a pair of pants or that the other world hadn't afforded him a way home. That it had in fact been a sop, from whoever was holding them here, to make them feel less like prisoners. And that for a short while it had worked.

He wandered the emptiness, then the woods as he worked his way back to the inn, the wolf hunting for... what he didn't know. Restless and pacing like a caged animal more than really searching for anything specific.

Then as dawn broke he found his feet on the well manicured lawn of the inn, shifting back to human form as he made his was wearily to his room.

[ooc: When the other world went away at midnight he got dumped back in the little world of the inn and he's annoyed. He also has no pants. He isn't really concerned by his nudity but please feel free to notice.]

Comments

[st_illunsmeared]

"Yes," Phryne replied with a hint of a laugh, quickly stifled. She didn't want Dot to think she was laughing at her. "I recall being startled and uncomfortable the first few times myself. It is natural, though, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it."

[st_oh_honestly]

"I know you believe that Miss, but that isn't what I was taught." And it was hard to reconcile the burgeoning awareness of her own desires even as chaste as they were comparatively speaking with the lessons of a lifetime.

[st_illunsmeared]

"At a certain point, Dot, you will have to decide for yourself whether you've sinned whenever your body informs you a man is attractive or whether God gave you eyes to see with and built your body as He did." She understood that what Dot has been taught had a firm hold, and Phryne did her best to respect it until Dot herself began to question.

[st_oh_honestly]

"It... didn't feel like a sin." Not really, even if her brain said differently.

[st_illunsmeared]

Fisher - 15, Grogan - Love . Phryne smiled quietly to herself.

"When you're cold, you shiver. When you're sad, you cry. Arousal is the same species of reaction to the presence of physical stimulus. Desire, the urge to act on that arousal, is an emotional reaction. They're nothing to be ashamed of, and the choice of acting on them or not is always yours."

[st_oh_honestly]

It didn't feel like being cold either, but she didn't say that. She was considering Phryne's words, the choice of acting on the feelings was hers.

It was strange to consider that a choice, it certainly hadn't been presented to her as a choice before.

"Everyone here is very different than at home."

[st_illunsmeared]

"Not everyone," she teased gently. "I expect the Inspector and I aren't very different at all." A little, perhaps, in that they'd stopped avoiding their feelings for each other. She supposed, too, that containing her extracurriculars to Jack in the hotel might be a bit disconcerting, but that ought to be a pleasant change for Dot.

Phryne reached across the space between them to tuck a loose wisp of hair behind Dot's ear and stroke her cheek. "Still, I imagine it's disorienting."

[st_oh_honestly]

"No, you're not." And that helped immensely. Phryne and the Inspector at least were still themselves. "But it is more than a little cofusing. I like most of the people I've met here, but... the church would tell me most of them are sinners, or demons."

And that didn't feel right to her.

[st_illunsmeared]

They were rapidly reaching the limits of Phryne's homespun theology, but she did have one useful thought. "Miss Pryde is of the Jewish faith. Perhaps you might find it interesting to speak to her." Alcuin's faith would be entirely alien, and best left for another day many years from now, were they still here.

[st_oh_honestly]

"Is she?" That was interesting, the least of the reasons being that Kitty didn't seem anything like any of the people of the Jewish faith that Dot had met.

[st_illunsmeared]

"So I am told. And the Jewish faith has been through many changes since Old Testament days. Perhaps she can speak to reconciling faith and change?" And if not, she was an intelligent and caring young woman. Dot could have worse friends.

[st_oh_honestly]

Faith and change, perhaps there was a something to that. Even if it seemed blasphemous to consider it.

"I'll ask her Miss," She saw her often enough, when Kitty was at the bar and Dot in the bakery. "Now I should let you... get beck to what you were doing."

[st_illunsmeared]

"Only if you're quite settled. The inspector can spare me until you're all right." Almost certainly, he'd gone back to sleep. Not that Phryne minded having the opportunity to wake him again. He still hadn't become accustomed to a woman who truly desired sex and she enjoyed surprising him.

[st_oh_honestly]

"I am," she promised. "And I shouldn't have come barging in."

Even if she was used to doing just that at home, regardless of how many people were in Miss Phryne's bed.

[st_illunsmeared]

Phryne stood and then bent to kiss Dot's forehead again. "Don't give it another thought, Dot. Neither Jack nor I would see you suffer, no matter how mildly." It wouldn't go amiss to knock first, but if she said as much, Dot would be bothered by guilt she needn't have.

[st_oh_honestly]

"Still," she got to her feet too. "I'll just clean up the coffee things, and I can press the Inspector's suit if he'd like."

[st_illunsmeared]

"I expect he would," Phryne agreed. "But you might wait until I call to bring it around. I don't plan for him to need it for awhile yet."

[st_oh_honestly]

"Yes Miss," she took Phryne's cup and would wait for the other woman to bring her the suit. "I can press a frock for you as well. Just call at the bakery when you're ready and I'll run everything up."

[st_illunsmeared]

"Thank you." Phryne waited only long enough for Dot to turn away with cup in hand to slip back into the bedroom.

Ordinarily, she'd shed her robe before she made it inside, but this time, this first morning, she waited to see if Jack was awake first. She did rather like the idea of taking it off for him.

[st_illunsung]

Jack had certainly been drowsing, but hadn't gone back to sleep. Not when he wanted to be awake for Phryne's return to bed after soothing Miss Williams from her upset. The door opening was enough to stir him back to full wakefulness, and he sat up slightly; Phryne Fisher was always worth watching, and watching her return to him, from her bed, while nude... only an idiot passed up that opportunity when it was placed before him.

[st_illunsmeared]

When Jack propped himself up, Phryne responded with a soft, sultry smile and let her untied robe slip slowly from her shoulders to puddle at her feet as she approached. She stopped at the side of the bed to stroke her hand down his chest and murmur, "Jack," in the tone that was always only for him. As amusing as her conversation with Dot had been on some levels, it had left her feeling tenderly toward her dear inspector and so she bent to kiss him sweet and lingeringly before rejoining him on the bed.

[st_illunsung]

And that would be a vision he kept with him for a long, long time. No doubt, given Phryne's love of the dramatic and penchant for showing affection directly, it would be a vision he'd have again, but Jack was the type of man to pack 'firsts' away as particular memories. "Has Miss Williams been suitably calmed?"

[st_illunsmeared]

Phryne curled around his hip and shoulder, fitting herself into the spaces his posture left, and while she spoke she trailed her fingertips down his chest and back again in a rhythmic thought-smoothing caress. "As much as she can be, poor darling." The corner of Phryne's mouth curled and a touch of mischief appeared in her eyes. "It seems she encountered a man, a fully grown man she stressed, in the all together, and one suspects at least partially aroused."

[st_illunsung]

"Aaaah." Worth a panicked burst-in, quite possibly. "One would think she'd see such a thing eventually," on her wedding night, at least, "and possibly should look on this as a valuable preparatory experience." After a brief pause, Jack added, "I feel sure you said none of that to her, of course."

[st_illunsmeared]

"Not in so many words," Phryne replied. "The trouble was rather more her reaction than his erection." More or less intentionally, Phryne stroked lower down his chest and belly, since when she'd finished telling him, she intended to be very interested in reacting to his erection. "Poor dear Dot has just discovered that arousal needn't coincide with affection or even acquaintance."