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]

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."

[st_illunsung]

"I see. Quite an awkward moment." It was less funny to him, given that he'd had something like that same realization earlier in life, and it had been confusing as hell. Additionally, a fair amount of Jack's attention was on Phryne's hand rather than her words. "And you, I assume, were quite supportive and didn't give in to your desire to laugh at her?"

[st_illunsmeared]

"I did laugh, but only at her expression when she first told me and I suggested I wouldn't be going after him since I had a perfectly lovely man already in my bed." She murmured and bent to kiss the pulse in his throat. "But otherwise, I was perfectly sober, taught her to recognize the signs of her own arousal and sent her onward with the knowledge that acting on her desire or anyone else's was absolutely always and ever her own choice." At that, Phryne frowned slightly. "That seemed to surprise her. I do despair that her mother may have taught her her husband would have needs and she was required to oblige."

[st_illunsung]

"Her mother and the church," Jack agreed, but forbore to comment further. A similar belief might well have colored parts of his marriage, before the war - not on his side, as in this particular area he preferred enthusiasm to duty, but on Rosie's. After the war, of course, was a different matter.

[st_illunsmeared]

Phryne humphed at that, because Jack was, of course, precisely right, and Phryne had had altogether enough of the Catholic Church and Father Grogan for today. "I often wonder how she reconciles sex as duty with my enthusiasm for the activity. I did try to express that it's meant to be pleasurable without encouraging her to throw off the Church's other teachings on the subject. I do respect her faith, even if I don't share it."