fandomhigh | Sex Thru The Ages, 9/08

The day after a holiday and one can only hope that people aren't hungover from celebrating. Well, if they were American. And from a time period that Labor Day is celebrated.

Look, it was an excuse for a day off for a lot of people. That's good enough for a party most of the time.

"Good morning class, today we'll be looking into another era in the history of sex. This time it will be ancient Egypt. Which, trust me, will hold your attention if you find prostitution and ritual virginity losing ceremonies to be just slightly interesting."

"Although," Algren noted, casting a sidelong look at Kirk, "prostitution seems a strong word. Considering the day and age, with medicine the way it was and the average life expectancy so much lower than it is now, the ancient Egyptians had sound reason for what they did."

Riiiight. Thank you for that bit of losing the interest of teenagers there.

"A more... enlightened view of sex then?" Jim suggested. "Where women who exchanged sex for monetary gain or religious purposes advertised their 'wares' as it were by wearing essentially fishnet dresses or tattooing their thighs and going nude."

Algren was a killjoy. He was not sorry for it in the least.

"The goal was to not only conceive a child, but to survive childbirth and bear healthy offspring," he noted, dryly. "If they managed to survive childbirth, then they would come to be seen as a desirable prospect as a future wife. They held elaborate ceremonies, festivals, if you will, which existed for the sole purpose of culminating in a mass..."

... He balked. Look, he was Victorian. There were some words that existed in his vocabulary well enough that were never going to leave his mouth.

"Orgy," Jim said for him, putting extra emphasis on it just to piss the man off.

"... Thank you, Jim." Algren did not look terribly thankful.

Jim gave him a pleasant smile. "No problem. If a woman survived childbirth, you had the opportunity to pick your husband. Polygamy was technically legal, but not engaged in for the most part mostly do to the inability to support so many wives and children."

"While we don't know the exact specifics of the customs involved in the 'act of' during such... events, we do know several key points about the ancient Egyptians." Algren straightened out his jacket. It was not an uncomfortable twitch, shut up. "We know that, for starters, they had absolutely no problems with nudity, in the day, and their paintings were abundant in sexual innuendo. They wrote graphic love poetry, and their sexual practices followed the lead of the Egyptian goddess, Hathor." Why yes, that absolutely was a handout or two, for the curious. "Their society was, in fact, highly centered around fertility."

"So, today we'll be having you try your hand at Egyptian poetry," Jim said, relaxing as he leaned against the teacher's desk. "Yes, love poetry. And we do encourage you to be as graphic as need be ~~keeping in mind this is an open comm~~."

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"Helen!" Cal grinned as he caught that drifting, looking-for-a-partner look on her face and slid into a seat next to her. "Remember me at all?"

To be fair, he only remembered her because her name was the same as his middle name, but still.

Helen looked up and blinked, then recognition set in. "Cal," she said, holding back a sigh. "Yes, of course. How are you?"

Awww, she did remember. Now Cal felt all special. "Good. Did you have a good summer?"

"It went well enough," Helen admitted, only a little grudgingly. "And you? I don't recall seeing you here this summer."

"That's because I wasn't here," Cal informed her proudly. "I was in Turkey, building churches."

"In... a turkey?" Helen was totally lost.

Somehow, Cal had a feeling he was going to get a response like that.

"No," he shook his head. "In Turkey. It's a country. Right by Greece."

Har har.

"This isn't a joke, is it?" she asked suspiciously. She wouldn't put it past him.

"I... well, I suppose I never heard of anyone building churches. All the ones I know have been there for ages."

"No, I swear," Cal chuckled a little bit. "I'll show you on a map sometime. There really is a country called Turkey, by another country called Greece. My family's from both, if you get technical. But I guess building churches isn't the most accurate way to put it. Re-building, if you will."

"Ah, yes," Helen said nodding. "I can understand that better then."

"If I was actually building them from scratch," Cal mused, "they'd probably be all lopsided and last just as long as the next time a slight breeze started up."

She laughed despite herself. "Oh, surely not!"

Any time now, Cal figured his heart would stop jumping up like that every time he made a girl laugh. It felt like no longer having a girlfriend and putting three months between himself and his social world just threw him right back to square one.

"Okay, maybe at least a stiff wind, then."

She shook her head, still grinning. "You're too determined to let such a thing happen."

"Me? Determined?" Cal looked amused, but puzzled. "Really?"

She shrugged, ducking her head. "Maybe I'm wrong. But you always seemed that way to me."

...and apparently girls thought he seemed determined...

...going away for the summer and then coming back was the best decision Cal had ever made. He was sure of it now.

"Thanks," he said, with a small, genuine smile, and he laughed, just a little. "Here I thought you'd always just taken me for annoying."

"Oh, that too," she said quickly. "But there's a certain determination in that as well, don't you think?"

Was that perhaps a small smile of teasing?

Cal couldn't help snorting at the quick response, partly to cover up a little disappointment. "I guess. Stubbornness is what people usually call it, isn't it?"

"It's not as if I'm unknown for my stubbornness," Helen admitted, "but I rather prefer to think of it as determination."

"It is probably a more complimentary way to put it," Cal agreed.

"Yes," said Helen. "And I'm well aware that people find it hard enough to say much nice about me, so determination is my choice."

Sex Thru The Ages, 9/08

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