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Stories from the Verse
Con Verse Lea
Chapter 8: Beam 121
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Takano 61
It occurred to Beam that once this marriage was consummated, this girl, whose name he just learned was the very not Japanese Ashleigh but who was known among the outlaws as Viper, would be condemned to the verser life, that she would never stay dead, never get older, and bounce from universe to universe with him. Something in the back of his mind said that he should tell her this, so she could make an informed decision. On the other hand, he had no intention of depriving himself of the pleasure of deflowering a young, very fit teenaged virgin. She’d find out soon enough. And anyway, if she didn’t like it, what could she do--kill him? Like that would matter.
He had never married a girl without having seen her face. Indeed, it struck him that he had never married a girl without having acquired an intimate familiarity with her entire naked body, although in the case of Sophia thanks to that magic ring he did not remember any of that. The phrase ‘buying a pig in a poke’ came to mind, but somehow he did not expect that was what he was getting here. He couldn’t yet see her face, but even in that loose-fitting black outfit it was obvious that she had a very attractive body.
“So, Ashleigh--or do I call you Viper?”
“You may call me whatever you like, Son of the Goddess,” she said, somewhat shyly. “It would be best if you called me ‘Viper’ when we are among the other outlaws--for our safety we do not share our real names--and that you don’t call me that when we are in ordinary clothes among ordinary people, again for our safety.”
That kind of made sense. “I don’t think you need to call me ‘Son of the Goddess’,” he said.
“What, then--Emperor?” she said.
“No, nothing like that. Sophie sometimes calls me Jim, and Bron calls me J.D., but I think most people call me Beam, or sometimes James. I’m also called other things, mostly by Sophie, not all of them complimentary.”
“You let your wife call you things that are disrespectful?”
He smiled. “I’m not sure I could stop her.”
“But, you’re the Emperor, right? Why do they not call you something more respectful?”
“For one thing, they were my friends before I was an emperor--”
“When you were the Prince?”
He laughed. “I was never a prince. I might have thought I was, but I don’t know that anyone else thought so. No, I created my own empire, and gave myself the title. But they had come with me, and helped me run my empire, until we left it behind a few days ago and came here.”
“Will you be returning there soon?”
“I probably will never return there,” he said, thinking that already his experiences suggested that there were so many universes out there the odds were very much against hitting the same one twice.
“Why not?”
“That’s not the way my life works--but you’ll understand that eventually. Right now, though, we have to finish the part about getting married that makes it official. If you’re ready?”
“What do we have to do?”
Great. They didn’t tell her. No sex education in this world, apparently.
“Don’t worry. I’ve been married twice before. I’ll walk you through it.”
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with twenty other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #460: Versers Reorganize. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
