Podcasts about Bursar

Strangers forced to share a cabin on a cruise ship. By HectorBidon. Listen to the Podcast at Steamy Stories.  The waiting area outside the Long Beach cruise terminal was abuzz with bright new outfits and happy chatter. It was enough to make even the most reserved introvert start to feel a bit of excitement. I was standing with Jack and Ciara, two regulars of the social group. Jack was tall and rugged, something to do with landscaping; Ciara tall and willowy, worked in an office of some sort. They weren't an official couple, as far as I knew, but they seemed to have hooked up for the New Year's Pacific cruise. That was sort of the way the group worked. Thirty somethings, mostly divorced, intent on maintaining the hard playing lifestyle of their twenties, looking for like-minded dating partners to do it with. Jack was explaining the different cruise drink payment plans. I smiled politely and nodded, thinking how different from theirs my life would be when I got to be their age. Denise bustled up in a pretty pastel pantsuit with her clipboard in her hand. She was a travel agent and the mother hen of the group, forty-something and no longer trying so hard to pretend she was any younger. She'd put together this group and made a nice extra income for her troubles. "Hector," she said, ushering me a step aside, "I'm afraid there's been a mix up with your reservation. Somehow your single cabin didn't show up on the final printout." She gave me a concerned look. "They're working on it,,  but we may have to double you up with someone." This came as a bit of a rude surprise. One of the only reasons I'd finally agreed to come on the cruise in the first place had been her assurance that I'd be able to have a single. It wasn't that I was antisocial really, but I had my limits. "You know Mrs. Pendergast, don't you?" Mrs. Pendergast was an older woman, well into her sixties. She wasn't a regular member of the group, but it amused her sometimes to hang with a younger crowd. The group let her tag along to some of their events. I was going to have to share a room with Mrs. Pendergast? "Apparently she got sick and had to cancel at the last minute. So we have an opening. She was sharing a room with, ah;" she double checked her forms; "a Ms. Crenshaw. I don't know her, but I'm sure she's very nice. It's a double room, and you know how it is on a cruise. You don't spend that much time in your room anyway." I didn't even try to return her smile. "They're still working on your single, of course. I just wanted to let you know the fallback plan." Not only losing my single, but having to spend the cruise being polite to an old lady? In Denise's mind, that was what the social group was all about. People were already starting to go into the terminal building when Denise came back, this time with an attractive young woman at her side. I wondered if it was Denise's daughter, there to see us off. "Hector," she said, peering at me over the top of her glasses, "this is Molly Crenshaw. I've been explaining our predicament." The girl gave me a weak smile. She was pretty, with long brown hair swept back, wearing white shorts and a light blue top. She didn't look like she could be a day over twenty-one. Not at all what I had pictured as a travelling companion for Mrs. Pendergast. "It's a double room," Denise was explaining. "I'm sure they'll be able to rig up a partition if need be. But this will be the first cruise for both of you. It will be nice to have a buddy to help you find your way around. I'm sure the two of you will hit it off." Molly was still looking at me rather uncertainly. This apparently wasn't exactly what she had signed up for, either. She looked back at Denise. "Well, if his other room got cancelled,” Denise was delighted. The registration mix-up had been solved in an efficient and social-group-positive way. I couldn't believe she was being so cavalier about putting a guy and a girl who didn't even know each other into the same room together. "They're still working on my single though, right?" "As far as I know. You'll be able to check with the Bursar once we get on board." Denise had more than enough smile for the three of us. They called our area for boarding. "See you on board," she said, bustling off with her clipboard. Going up the gangway onto the ship itself kind of blew me away. You entered onto the mezzanine level of what looked like the fanciest mall I'd ever seen. There was an atrium that rose several stories high with glass elevators gliding up and down and fancy shops and glittering lights on every different level. On the floor below us a fellow in a tuxedo was playing a grand piano. All of this right in the middle of the ship. Molly's eyes were as wide as mine. They'd told us to have lunch while the luggage was being brought on. Molly and I had come aboard with a bunch of other social groupers, but they'd all buzzed off one way or another leaving the two of us by ourselves. We found a little sandwich and salad buffet. "So, your first cruise?" I asked. I was pretty sure I'd be able to get the room situation straightened out, but there was no harm in being polite. She assembled a forkful of salad. "Yes, Mrs. Pendergast is a patient at the clinic where I work. She's pretty chatty, you know. She kept talking about this fantastic cruise she was going on. But she needed a travelling companion to come along and sort of look after her." She shrugged. " Mrs. Pendergast offered to cover the cost, if I'd come with. I don't know, she has a way of getting what she wants." "Is she all right?" I asked. "Denise says she's afraid she might be coming down with something. She's a bit of a hypochondriac. But the tickets are already paid for, and I'm already here, so Denise said I should just come along on the cruise without her." She gave her little shrug again and took a sip of iced tea. "Your first cruise too?" "I'm not really a member of the social group, actually. I went on a nature hike with them one time and ended up on Denise's list. So now she sends me emails every time she has some big event. She was kind of persistent this time. I think they needed to sign up a certain number of people in order to get a discount or something." Molly nodded and stabbed a crouton. "Well, it is a cruise. It should be fun. And it'll be nice not to have to keep tabs on Mrs. Pendergast all the time. There's gambling, you know. When we get far enough out to sea." "You gamble?" "Of course. Poker, black jack. Machines mostly, but sometimes at the tables. I have a system. It's a lot of fun." After lunch I asked my way up to the Bursar's office. Molly came along to make sure that everything worked out. The Bursar looked me up in his computer. Apparently, when Mrs. Pendergast had cancelled, they'd looked to fill the vacancy with someone from our same group. I was the only one in a single, so they moved me in to fill her spot and gave my room to someone else. He double checked, but there weren't any other singles available. He apologized for the inconvenience and gave me my key card. I was flabbergasted. "Well," said Molly, "we might as well go check it out at least." We found our way down to the deck where the cabin was located. The room itself was not much bigger than a walk-in closet. A chair, a little night stand, a mirror on the bathroom door, a bed against the wall. That was it. We looked at each other. "Kind of smaller than I would have thought," I said. "Yeah," she agreed. I corralled a passing steward. "Um, we were supposed to be getting a double room?" I showed him the printout. "Yes, yes," he said in his helpful foreign accent. "Very nice double cabin." "But there's only one bed." I said. "Double bed," he explained. Then he gestured toward the porthole on the wall. "Ocean view!" He smiled, happy to have been of service, and went on about his way. Molly didn't look altogether convinced. I sighed. "Let me go talk to the Bursar again,” But she was sizing things up. Sunshine was streaming in through the porthole. Our two suitcases had been placed in a little niche beside the bathroom door, side by side. "All the other rooms are probably just as small," she said. "On this level anyway. And they seem to have already given your other room away." She looked at me. "Do you snore?" It wasn't a question I was expecting. "I don't think so. No one's ever complained." "Well, Mrs. Pendergast does, apparently. That's the one thing I've been dreading the most." She looked back at the room. "I guess this is just what double rooms are like on cruise ships. Maybe it's not so bad. At least you don't snore. We're kind of on an adventure anyway. Maybe we should just try and make the best of it." She made it sound as if sharing a room with a complete stranger of the opposite sex was no bigger a deal than sharing a table with him at lunch. She sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the schedule of the day's activities as if the issue had already been decided. "Shuffleboard lessons at three o'clock," she noted. "Bingo at four thirty." I sat down on the chair. So instead of getting a room of my own I was going to have to share this one? Surely there must be some other alternative. What if,  what if I asked Denise to ask Ciara to move in here with Molly and let me bunk with Jack? Ugh! I cringed at the thought. "A magic show tonight in the forward theatre." Molly announced; reading more literature. I looked around. How would it even work? The room was so tiny. There was only the one bed. Molly was studying a map of the ship. "What do you think we should do first?" She'd not only accepted the fact that we'd be rooming together, she was ready to head out and start exploring. "Um,  why don't you just go ahead on your own? I've still got a couple things I need to take care of first." I couldn't tell if she was a bit hurt that I didn't want to join her. But she shrugged it off. "Well, OK. Then I guess we can just meet back up here later." I didn't really have anything I needed to take care of, I just wanted a little time to sort things out. I was pretty bummed that they'd given away my single. And I wasn't sure how I felt about Molly's matter-of-fact-ness. Was she really so used to sharing rooms with random guys? Still, if I did have to share a room with someone, Molly was probably no more objectionable than Jack or Mrs. Pendergast. She was more my age. She was just out of college and I had a few years on her. She seemed pretty easy going. If we'd been thrown together as partners at a workshop breakout session, I wouldn't have objected. But sharing insights at a breakout session wasn't exactly the same as sharing a cabin on a cruise ship. I'd had to share rooms with strangers before, but they'd always been guys. What you did was you put on your blinders, you put up your shields, you went about your business, you let them go about theirs. You tried to be polite. At least that's the way it worked with guys. Did it work that way with girls too? I guess I'd find out. The ship must have cast off soon after we came on board, but so smoothly that we hadn't even noticed. By the time I found my way up on deck we'd already cleared the harbor and were quite a ways out from land. I stood at the railing and watched the waves roll by. I wondered whether I might get seasick, but the deck was as firm and steady as any sidewalk on the mainland. The ship turned out to be a whole little city unto itself. There was a miniature golf course at one end and a climbing wall at the other. The top deck held two full-sized swimming pools, each already surrounded by sun bathers glistening in cocoa butter. The lower decks held lounges and theaters and eateries and nightclubs. There were shops and kiosks on every level; a sports bar, a wine bar, two piano bars, a margarita bar ("Hi, Jack! Hi, Ciara!"); and any number of different ways to get from any one place to any other: by stairs, by elevator, by main passageway, by side passageway. Later in the afternoon I sat down at a little coffee shop toward the stern of the ship and nursed a cup of lapsang souchong. Seagulls were gliding along in our tailwind. I'd been making good progress on a couple algorithms at work, and I went over some of the key steps in my mind. It was nice being out of the cubicle for a change, sitting in the sunshine, daydreaming instead of coding, watching the seagulls hover and veer. My thoughts eventually wandered back to my room situation. I still couldn't understand why Molly was being so agreeable about sharing the cabin. It dawned on me that maybe she didn't think she had any other choice. Maybe she thought that since she was only here as Mrs. Pendergast's guest, she had to do whatever Denise asked. And so maybe she wasn't really all that used to sharing rooms with random guys either. Maybe she was just doing what she thought was expected. A fellow shipmate, a sort-of member of the same social group she was sort of a member of, needed a place to bunk. She had an empty spot. Didn't shipboard etiquette kind of dictate that she offer to share? But then, by the same token, what did shipboard etiquette expect of me? I finished my tea and ambled back toward the front of the ship. A raucous game of volleyball was taking place in one of the pools. Someone called my name. "Are you going back to the room? I forgot my card." It was Molly. She gave her little shrug. She was wearing a bright yellow bikini. It was fairly conservative, the kind she could wear to the gym, but it called your attention to her shapely legs and her slender tummy. We made our way down the labyrinth of passageways toward our lower deck. The people we passed would have naturally assumed that we were together. "I figured out about dinner," she said. "Everybody has an assigned time and an assigned table. Ours is in about an hour. We can go together if you want." After a couple of wrong turns we finally found our corridor and our little room. It hadn't gotten any bigger in the time we'd been away. But there was a fresh bath towel sitting on the bed, folded into a sort of soft-origami swan. "Look how cute," Molly said. "The housekeepers must have been in." She put her things on the nightstand and fiddled in her suitcase for some clothes. "I'm just going to take a quick shower first." She went into the bathroom, taking the swan along with her. I sat on the foot of the bed and took a look at the schedule. The walls were thin enough that I could hear the water splashing. She came out wrapped in the towel. "It's too cramped to get dressed in there," she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. She looked around the room, a bit awkwardly. So this was one of the guys-and-girls-sharing-a-cabin rules that I wasn't really familiar with. What was I supposed to do while she got dressed? Step into the bathroom to give her some privacy? Or just ignore her, the way I would if I was sharing the room with a guy? She wasn't completely sure how to play it either. She turned to face the mirror, but that only put her sideways to me. So she turned all the way around, facing the outer door. She tried to give the impression that changing clothes in front of a cabin mate wasn't that big a deal. So I tried to follow her lead. I didn't stare, and she had her back to me, but it was hard not to notice what she was doing. She started by putting on her bra, but as she was pulling it up, her towel slipped, revealing the two round, pretty cheeks of her bottom. She quickly pulled the towel back into place, and I quickly forced my eyes back to the schedule. So it was only with my peripheral vision that I was able to see her stepping into her panties and skirt and buttoning up her blouse. Finally she sat on the chair to fasten her sandals. Our eyes met again. She sighed, then admitted. "I work in a clinic. I often have to help clients get over themselves, when they have to disrobe for an exam, in front of someone they don't know. I think I have better empathy, now. Oh, Dinner is supposed to be smart casual." she remarked. I took that to mean that my polo shirt didn't quite cut it. I'd brought a couple button-down shirts, and so I went over and got one from my suitcase. She nodded approvingly and turned to the mirror, fiddling with her hair. I took off my polo shirt and put on the button one. The dining room was immense, with big round tables like in a reception hall. Molly and I were assigned to a table with some of the other people from our group. I let Molly sit next to Ciara. There was nobody on my other side, which was fine with me. Molly and Ciara found some girl stuff to talk about. The general conversation at the table seemed to be about motorcycles. Denise stopped by to see how everyone was doing. Molly had the chicken and I had the fish. We resisted the hard liquor, but we both had a glass of wine with our meal. Valentin, our engaging Bulgarian waiter, brought us the chit. We had both just assumed that wine was included in the meal, but he explained that it would be added to our room bill. "Will they charge it to Mrs. Pendergast?" Molly whispered, afraid they might. "We'll figure it out," I whispered back, signing for both of us. The magic show didn't start until eight o'clock, so after dinner Molly suggested we just wander around. She showed me the little art gallery she'd discovered on deck six where it met the central atrium. Photographs of interesting doorways on old, rustic buildings. Just past the art gallery was a little gift shop. We went in, and Molly looked at the jewelry counter. She asked the lady to bring out a necklace that caught her eye. I leafed through the post cards, but I didn't really have anyone to send one to. We still had forty-five minutes until the show, so I took Molly up to the miniature golf course. We didn't bother keeping score. I made a couple lucky shots. Then, on the next-to-the-last hole, Molly's shot went wild and bounced onto the next green over. It ricocheted off a bumper and coasted down, curving gently, right into the cup. A perfect hole in one into the wrong hole! "Whoa!" I said. "Remind me never to play you for money." She raised her putter and blew on the end as if it were a smoking rifle barrel. "You should see me at pinball." The magic show was a lot of fun. The magician wore a black hat and cape and his pretty assistant wore a slinky black dress. They did all the traditional tricks with rings and scarves and giant cards. Then, for the grand finale, the magician announced that he was going to make his assistant disappear right before our very eyes. He had her stand at the front of the stage with her arms up and out to the crowd. He waved his wand and, Presto!, she didn't disappear, but her dress did! It was just gone! She kept standing there for a second with her breasts completely exposed and nothing covering her at all except a tiny G-string thong. Finally she realized what had happened. She shrieked, covered herself with her hands, and ran offstage, letting us see that her backside was just as shapely as her front. The magician was shocked that his trick had backfired. Shocked! But the audience was applauding wildly, and so he turned and bowed. And as he swept off his hat, what should fall out but the assistant's little black dress. He picked it up and gave us a sly grin. The assistant came out to take her bow, wrapped in a white ship's towel just like the one Molly had been wearing. When she saw what the magician had in his hand, she snatched it back from him with a nasty glare. The crowd ate it up. Molly was laughing as much as I was. After the show we went back up on deck and strolled a while in the cool night air. The ship was plowing along through moonlit waves, stars twinkling in the sky. Toward the stern, lively dance music was thumping up from the nightclubs below. We found our way down to check it out. We spotted Jack and Ciara in the hip-hop club amidst the flashing strobe lights and pulsing lasers. Jack raised his glass and Ciara called something we didn't quite catch. Further on was the salsa club, throbbing with its own level of intensity. Then came the golden oldies club, somewhat more subdued. And finally a relatively quiet lounge where we sat down and shared a bottle of sparkling water. "It's pretty amazing, isn't it?" Molly said. "I never thought there would be so many different things going on. A whole resort on a single ship! And they can just hoist up the anchor and sail us away to wherever they want to take us." I had to agree. "And the way it's so completely self-contained. I mean, what could we possibly want that they aren't already completely stocked up on? The whole rest of the world could just go ahead and blow itself up and we wouldn't even notice." It had been a pleasant evening. And Denise had been right: it had been fun to have a buddy to share it with. But now we were heading back to our little room, and we had to turn our attention to the more mundane aspects of cabin sharing. Molly went to the bathroom first, and then I did, and then neither of us was quite sure how to proceed. It was becoming pretty clear that she wasn't any more familiar with cabin sharing than I was. Both of us kept looking at the bed. It was up against the outer wall, and almost as long as the cabin was wide. It was going to be awkward getting to the side against the wall without disturbing the other person. Presumably the cabin-sharing etiquette book would have had something to say. I decided that one of us should at least try to pretend that they knew what they were doing. "Would you mind if I took the side with the ocean view?" That seemed like the most gentlemanly arrangement. She didn't argue, and in fact I think she was relieved to have the issue resolved. She opened her suitcase and brought out a pair of frilly, sky-blue pajamas. She looked around again and then turned her back like she had before. I sat down at the foot of the bed. I hadn't even thought to bring any pajamas myself. Well, there wasn't much I could do about it now. I took off my shoes and socks and tried not to pay any undue attention to what she was doing. She stepped into her pajama bottoms and pulled them up under her skirt before taking it off. Then she pulled off her blouse and put on her pajama top so quickly that I caught only the briefest glimpse of her bra strap. Then she reached in under the top, unhooked her bra, and fished it out. Meanwhile, I'd taken off my shirt and pants. I figured I could slip under the covers without her seeing me in my underwear. But then I realized that she'd had a perfect view in the bathroom-door mirror all along. She didn't let on, though. That seemed to be the universal rule of awkward cabin sharing, for girls as well as for guys. Just go about your business and let your cabin mate go about theirs. I crawled up onto the far side of the bed, trying not to notice if she was paying any attention. She turned off the light and got in on her side. I'd had to share beds with other guys before on occasion. What you do is turn your back, keep yourself perfectly still, and imagine that there is an invisible force field that insulates your half of the bed from the entire rest of the universe. I quickly discovered, however, that this technique is not that effective when the person lying beside you is a pretty girl in frilly pajamas. I got such a hard-on that I was sure she could sense it, even though we had our backs turned. So I thought about my algorithms. I rehearsed an upcoming seminar presentation of their salient features. And then I rehearsed it again. And then I rehearsed it again. Sunlight was shining in through the porthole again when I woke up the next morning. Molly was still asleep, but I needed to pee. I edged out of bed, trying my best not to disturb her. I went to the bathroom, then quietly got dressed and slipped out of the room. There were only a few people up on deck at this hour. We'd sailed during the night and were now anchored at the entrance to the harbor at Catalina Island. It was a beautiful morning, the water a rich cerulean blue, the harbor dotted with rows of pretty boats. I came back down and found a dining room that served breakfast. I had a bite and brought back coffee and a roll for Molly. She was up, but still in her pajamas. I told her about the island and tried to show her through the porthole. The way the ship was facing, though, we were only able to see the rugged hills of the island and not the harbor itself. By mid-morning she had talked me into going in to shore with her. It was like being transported back in time to the sunny southern California you see in old-time newsreels: palm trees, cute bungalows, handsome, sun-tanned people sitting at outdoor cafes or lounging under colorful beach umbrellas. We walked all the way along the beachfront to the palatial ballroom at the end, admiring its lovely art-deco mosaics of naked mermaids cavorting amidst swirling kelp forests and playful schools of fish. The huge round floor of the ballroom itself was dark and empty on this weekday morning, but photos along the walls showed elegantly dressed couples waltzing at the annual New Year's Eve ball. Molly was enchanted. "Let's come back for it, want to?" "I'm afraid my ballroom dancing is a little rusty." "Well, you'll have to brush up then." We strolled back along the main boulevard amidst tourists and tradesmen and shopping housewives. We looked in the windows of the boutiques and souvenir shops and had lunch at one of the sidewalk cafes. Molly filled me in on all the latest gossip about the interns and nurses at her clinic. I told her a bit about my algorithms. I may have gotten a little carried away, actually, but she did her best to follow along. Our map showed a botanical garden a couple miles out of town. Molly was game, so after lunch we rented a tourist cart and headed off to look for it. I drove and Molly navigated, and after a few wrong turns we found ourselves bumping along into the dusty interior of the island. It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and we had the place pretty much to ourselves. It had never even occurred to me that there were botanical gardens devoted almost entirely to cactus. I'd certainly never imagined there were so many different varieties: towering suaros like in the cowboy movies; rough organ pipes that shimmered like coral formations on the floor of some strange alien sea; fuzzy white phalluses that tried to lure you into thinking they were cuddly enough to pet; plump barrel cactus with swirling patterns of pristine spikes as geometrically perfect as Faberge eggs. Molly discovered a sprawling specimen that must have taken up a half a city block. It was covered with prickly green Mickey Mouse ears, and on the whole rugged plant there was one lone ear that held a single tiny delicate yellow flower. "That's what I want for my corsage," she said. "When we come back for New Year's Eve." We eventually bumped our way back into town and dropped off the cart. The tender back to the ship was pretty full, and Molly and I had to press up shoulder-to-shoulder on the bench. She closed her eyes in the afternoon sunshine. "A perfect day," she murmured. "And tonight's the gala dinner. And gambling!" "Gala dinner?" She opened one eye just enough to give me a look. "You were supposed to bring a sport coat. It was in the brochure." When we got back to the room we found our towel on the nightstand, folded into the shape of a jungle cat, ready to pounce. I had brought my sports coat, but it was pretty creased from being crammed in my suitcase. Molly hung it in the bathroom when she went in to take her shower. Then when she was done I took my own, making sure to give her plenty of time to get dressed. I cracked the door to see if the coast was clear. She was making her final adjustments in the mirror and stepped aside to let me out. She was wearing a lilac gown with a sequined top and a long swishy skirt. "I got it on sale," she shrugged. But I could tell from the way she kept looking at herself in the mirror that she was pretty pleased with it. Now I was the one who had to get dressed in front of her. I just went at it cabin-buddy style, turning my back and pulling things up under my towel like she had done. When I fetched my sports coat from the bathroom, the creases were a little less noticeable. We made our way up to the dining room. It was nice, actually, being a little dressed up. I found myself walking a little taller, standing a little straighter. Molly took my arm as we made our way to the table, and everyone paused to look. Molly and Ciara chatted about shopping on the island. It turned out that Jack knew something about cacti from his landscaping work and was interested to hear about the botanical garden. The appetizers were oysters on the half shell. It was my first time eating them, and Molly showed me what to do. By the time that dinner was over, the ship had gotten far enough out to sea that the casino was open. Molly walked right in as if she knew what she was doing. She got ten dollars' worth of quarters, and I pitched in another ten, trying my best to match her air of confident sophistication. She went to one of the poker machines, and I drew up a stool beside her. "So what's this system of yours? Or is it a secret?" "I only play until I run out of quarters. That way I never lose more than I'm willing to spend." I didn't think that that was what people meant by a "system," but I didn't say anything. I watched her play a few hands. The machine would deal out five cards. She would select which ones she wanted to keep, and the machine would replace the others. "I usually just bet a quarter. But if we're going to pool our money, we can bet two at a time, OK?" I finally figured out how it worked. If we got anything less than a pair of jacks, the machine would keep our money. If we got jacks or better, it would give us our money back. If we got an even better hand, like two pairs or three of a kind, it would pay out according to a table posted on the screen. All the way up to a hundred bucks for a royal flush. We lost our first few quarters, but then we got three aces, and the machine clunked us six shiny new quarters back out. Molly would study each hand carefully before making her selection. She pretty much chose the same cards that I would have chosen, except she was a little over-optimistic about our chances of getting a straight or a flush. On one hand the machine dealt us the jack and king of diamonds, along with a pair of eights. She eagerly selected to keep the jack and the king. "No, no," I told her. "Keep the eights." "But we have a chance for a royal flush." "But the odds are better for getting another eight." She gave me her look of patient exasperation. "Because look,” I tried to say. But she wasn't particularly interested in my analysis. "OK, Mr. Algorithm." She changed the selection. The machine dealt us a queen, a three, and a six and beeped the forlorn tone that meant "better luck next time." Molly flashed me her told-you-so eyebrows. "Well, we wouldn't have gotten the royal flush either." "Not if we didn't even try!" There was one moment of genuine excitement when we got a full house, sixes and queens. The machine clanged like crazy and quarters came pouring out. But eventually every one of them got re-deposited, never to be seen again. It wasn't really gambling so much as just playing a video game. An enjoyable one, though. There was the dress-up aspect, the battle of wits, the allure of the hundred-dollar jackpot. Molly certainly enjoyed playing, and I enjoyed watching her. I noticed that it was almost time for the show. "Juggling?" Molly wasn't so sure. She rattled our cup. "We still have a few quarters left." "Yes, juggling! I'll have you know that I minored in juggling in college. Come on. It'll be fun." The show was in the forward theatre again, right next to the casino. The Flying Garbanzo Brothers! Hup Hup! Four strapping guys with streaming hair and Frank Zappa mustaches, dressed in colorful gypsy blouses and billowing pantaloons. They juggled everything from tennis balls to bowling pins to pineapples to power tools. One of the brothers, Yakov, had a rakish, devil-may-care attitude and was always grinning at the ladies in the audience. In one of the acts, as balls were whizzing back and forth across the stage, he started making eyes at a blonde in the front row. He began paying less and less attention to his juggling, occasionally letting a ball fly past him, which one of the other brothers would then have to lurch out of formation to keep in play. Finally he just gave up on the juggling altogether and sat down on the edge of the stage, chatting the lady up. The other brothers were flailing frantically to keep all the balls in the air. They began to retire them, one by one, but somehow the very last ball went out of control and arched way up high toward the front of the stage. Yakov casually reached his hand out to the side and caught it without even looking. "Ladies and gentlemen!" announced Ripov, the black brother with dreads, "For our grand finale, a feat of blistering dexterity so flagrantly dangerous that it has never before been attempted within the enclosed confines of a luxury liner!" The brothers proceeded to arrange a panoply of torches and hoops and bales of combustible material all around the stage. Yakov came out sporting a mischievous grin and lugging a big red can, labeled 'gasoline.' Just as he was about to douse the first bale, the stagehand stormed in, a short oriental fellow in a white lab coat and thick black glasses, squawking in a barely intelligible accent and waving the ubiquitous ship safety placard, the one with the picture of the lifesaver on it. Yakov's grin collapsed into a sneer, but he put down the can. "Still never attempted," he muttered under his breath. The brothers juggled the torches anyway, unlit but unwieldy, back and forth through the hoops and over the bales. Suddenly red and orange crepe-paper streamers unfurled and rose up, flickering like flames and giving the impression, at least, of a roaring inferno. All in all, it was enough to get your blood pumping. When the show was over there was a bit of a traffic jam getting out of the theater. I grabbed Molly's hand and dragged her toward a less crowded side exit. Hup hup! We found ourselves in a stateroom passageway, and I kept dragging her along at a rapid pace. "Where are we going?" she asked. "C'mon," I replied. The fact is, I didn't really know. At the end of the passage was a short stairway up to a bulkhead door. We went through and found ourselves outside on a little deck by the lifeboats. The sun had set, but you could still see the frothy wave caps. At the end of the deck was another stairway, and at the top was the entrance to the miniature golf. I still didn't know exactly what I was looking for, but it wasn't miniature golf. There was another way to go, though, even further forward, right along the edge of the bow. Molly was panting from our frantic pace, but she was keeping up. We'd reached the very front of the ship. The image of Leonardo DeCaprio holding Kate Winslet on the bow of the Titanic flashed into my mind. That's what I wanted! Moonlight! Sea spray! Violins! But the forward view was all walled off. The only thing you could see, if you turned around, was the bridge, looming up above us, ominously dark except for the eerie glow from the radar screens. There was a stairway leading up to it, but the sign said "Authorized personnel only." "Kind of not what I was expecting," I said. "Oh, well," she said. She pulled us across to the other side where another deckway led back aft. The wall there was not so high, and we stood for a while, watching the foamy caps and the unbounded emptiness. We had engine noises instead of violins and a stinging wind instead of an enchanted spray. "Do you think they'd even bother to tell us?" she wondered. "Tell us?" "If the world blew itself up." But the wind was just too fierce. We retreated back to the more sheltered parts of the ship. This time Jack and Ciara were in the Salsa Club. They waved us in. "What are you having?" Jack yelled over the music, heading for the bar. Ciara and Molly had to half shout to hear each other. Jack came back with something tall and fruity for Molly and something short and amber colored for me. The music was catchy and persistent. Jack held out his hand and led Molly onto the dance floor. They made a handsome couple: Jack rugged and manly, Molly fresh and pretty. I felt a twinge of jealousy. Molly knew a lot of steps, and she was clearly enjoying herself. I gave Ciara an awkward smile and we walked out to join them. It turned out that Ciara was quite a dancer too. She would lose herself in the music, letting her willowy body become an instrument of its expression. I felt kind of bad that she was stuck having me as her partner, but the dance floor was crowded and she didn't seem to mind. When the song ended, she smiled and put her hand on my arm as she caught her breath. She was attractive, with long, honey-blonde hair and a captivating smile. A bit older than me, but not that much. I tried to picture the two of us going out after we got back home. By the third song it was no longer really clear any more who was dancing with whom. Ciara and Molly were dancing next to each other and laughing together at something one of them had said. Then Ciara turned her attention to Jack, and he gave her a few of the moves that her dancing so richly deserved. They made a striking couple too, in a different way than Jack and Molly. They seemed more appropriate for each other, somehow, a better fit. And there was a genuine cozy affection between them that I could imagine outlasting the cruise. Meanwhile, Molly was dancing beside me now, her freshness and joyful enthusiasm now beamed my way. That seemed more appropriate too. Molly and I finally called it a night. It had been a long, eventful day: mermaids, cacti, sea spray, dancing. We made our way down the corridor to the little room that was beginning to feel more and more like home. I took off my coat. Molly's hair was a bit mussed, but she looked happy, as if her day had been as full and eventful as mine had been. I brought my arms up to give her a little hug. I figured that the rules of cabin etiquette wouldn't begrudge us one little hug. But she stepped into it, and before I knew it we were kissing, a kiss that continued as we shuffled our way toward the bed. We sat down. I put my hand on her shoulder and ran it over her sequined back. She touched my face and let her tongue brush my lips. I stroked her side and whispily brushed her breast. She drew in her breath, then reached behind herself and undid her clasp. Her bodice slipped down like a sequined snake skin, revealing the more luminous, more tender skin beneath. Her breasts were perfect, pale and shy, each one frankly punctuated by a bashful, yearning nipple. I couldn't help but lean in and encircle one of them with my lips, tasting it gently with my own tongue. She held me softly there. The rules of cabin etiquette, it seemed, had been suspended by mutual consent. She lifted herself just enough to slip her gown off the rest of the way. She draped it over the chair and gave me the bashful version of her shrug. We had to get ready for bed after all. I undressed too, placing my clothes on top of hers. She lay down, wearing only her panties. I took off everything and lay down beside her. We glided our hands over each other's arms, over each other's sides, over each other's hips. My penis was sticking out like a sore thumb, but I just let it. I caressed her firm bottom and hitched her closer so that our thighs touched, so that her nipples grazed my chest. I slipped my hand down inside her panties to be even closer to the smooth, cool touch of her skin. Always before, one part of my brain would already have been working out the logistics of getting us back where we would need to go when we were finished. But tonight those concerns were blissfully absent. We were both already right where we needed to be, right in the very bed where we would be spending the night. But there was one concern I couldn't put aside. "I'm afraid I didn't think to bring any protection. Do you think the gift shop might still be open?" "It's okay," she murmured. "I'm protected." We kissed again. She reached down and slipped off her last remaining piece of clothing. So now we both were naked, lying together in each other's arms, in the very bed where we were going to spend the night. It wasn't that I didn't know what to do next, it was just that I was a little bashful to be the one to initiate it. And, truth be told, I was more than happy just to be doing what we were doing, lying together so intimately, so completely within each other's personal space, so fully accepting, so fully accepted. If that was going to be enough for her, it was certainly plenty enough for me. But I didn't object when she knelt up, and straddled my thighs, and took my rigid penis in her hand, and glided her moist vagina down upon it. Neither of us said a word. Partly it was shyness, but partly it was just because there was no need to muddle up with words what our entwined bodies were already saying so well without them. To be continued. By HectorBidon for Literotica.

Strangers forced to share a cabin on a cruise ship. By HectorBidon. Listen to the Podcast at Steamy Stories.  The waiting area outside the Long Beach cruise terminal was abuzz with bright new outfits and happy chatter. It was enough to make even the most reserved introvert start to feel a bit of excitement. I was standing with Jack and Ciara, two regulars of the social group. Jack was tall and rugged, something to do with landscaping; Ciara tall and willowy, worked in an office of some sort. They weren't an official couple, as far as I knew, but they seemed to have hooked up for the New Year's Pacific cruise. That was sort of the way the group worked. Thirty somethings, mostly divorced, intent on maintaining the hard playing lifestyle of their twenties, looking for like-minded dating partners to do it with. Jack was explaining the different cruise drink payment plans. I smiled politely and nodded, thinking how different from theirs my life would be when I got to be their age. Denise bustled up in a pretty pastel pantsuit with her clipboard in her hand. She was a travel agent and the mother hen of the group, forty-something and no longer trying so hard to pretend she was any younger. She'd put together this group and made a nice extra income for her troubles. "Hector," she said, ushering me a step aside, "I'm afraid there's been a mix up with your reservation. Somehow your single cabin didn't show up on the final printout." She gave me a concerned look. "They're working on it,,  but we may have to double you up with someone." This came as a bit of a rude surprise. One of the only reasons I'd finally agreed to come on the cruise in the first place had been her assurance that I'd be able to have a single. It wasn't that I was antisocial really, but I had my limits. "You know Mrs. Pendergast, don't you?" Mrs. Pendergast was an older woman, well into her sixties. She wasn't a regular member of the group, but it amused her sometimes to hang with a younger crowd. The group let her tag along to some of their events. I was going to have to share a room with Mrs. Pendergast? "Apparently she got sick and had to cancel at the last minute. So we have an opening. She was sharing a room with, ah;" she double checked her forms; "a Ms. Crenshaw. I don't know her, but I'm sure she's very nice. It's a double room, and you know how it is on a cruise. You don't spend that much time in your room anyway." I didn't even try to return her smile. "They're still working on your single, of course. I just wanted to let you know the fallback plan." Not only losing my single, but having to spend the cruise being polite to an old lady? In Denise's mind, that was what the social group was all about. People were already starting to go into the terminal building when Denise came back, this time with an attractive young woman at her side. I wondered if it was Denise's daughter, there to see us off. "Hector," she said, peering at me over the top of her glasses, "this is Molly Crenshaw. I've been explaining our predicament." The girl gave me a weak smile. She was pretty, with long brown hair swept back, wearing white shorts and a light blue top. She didn't look like she could be a day over twenty-one. Not at all what I had pictured as a travelling companion for Mrs. Pendergast. "It's a double room," Denise was explaining. "I'm sure they'll be able to rig up a partition if need be. But this will be the first cruise for both of you. It will be nice to have a buddy to help you find your way around. I'm sure the two of you will hit it off." Molly was still looking at me rather uncertainly. This apparently wasn't exactly what she had signed up for, either. She looked back at Denise. "Well, if his other room got cancelled,” Denise was delighted. The registration mix-up had been solved in an efficient and social-group-positive way. I couldn't believe she was being so cavalier about putting a guy and a girl who didn't even know each other into the same room together. "They're still working on my single though, right?" "As far as I know. You'll be able to check with the Bursar once we get on board." Denise had more than enough smile for the three of us. They called our area for boarding. "See you on board," she said, bustling off with her clipboard. Going up the gangway onto the ship itself kind of blew me away. You entered onto the mezzanine level of what looked like the fanciest mall I'd ever seen. There was an atrium that rose several stories high with glass elevators gliding up and down and fancy shops and glittering lights on every different level. On the floor below us a fellow in a tuxedo was playing a grand piano. All of this right in the middle of the ship. Molly's eyes were as wide as mine. They'd told us to have lunch while the luggage was being brought on. Molly and I had come aboard with a bunch of other social groupers, but they'd all buzzed off one way or another leaving the two of us by ourselves. We found a little sandwich and salad buffet. "So, your first cruise?" I asked. I was pretty sure I'd be able to get the room situation straightened out, but there was no harm in being polite. She assembled a forkful of salad. "Yes, Mrs. Pendergast is a patient at the clinic where I work. She's pretty chatty, you know. She kept talking about this fantastic cruise she was going on. But she needed a travelling companion to come along and sort of look after her." She shrugged. " Mrs. Pendergast offered to cover the cost, if I'd come with. I don't know, she has a way of getting what she wants." "Is she all right?" I asked. "Denise says she's afraid she might be coming down with something. She's a bit of a hypochondriac. But the tickets are already paid for, and I'm already here, so Denise said I should just come along on the cruise without her." She gave her little shrug again and took a sip of iced tea. "Your first cruise too?" "I'm not really a member of the social group, actually. I went on a nature hike with them one time and ended up on Denise's list. So now she sends me emails every time she has some big event. She was kind of persistent this time. I think they needed to sign up a certain number of people in order to get a discount or something." Molly nodded and stabbed a crouton. "Well, it is a cruise. It should be fun. And it'll be nice not to have to keep tabs on Mrs. Pendergast all the time. There's gambling, you know. When we get far enough out to sea." "You gamble?" "Of course. Poker, black jack. Machines mostly, but sometimes at the tables. I have a system. It's a lot of fun." After lunch I asked my way up to the Bursar's office. Molly came along to make sure that everything worked out. The Bursar looked me up in his computer. Apparently, when Mrs. Pendergast had cancelled, they'd looked to fill the vacancy with someone from our same group. I was the only one in a single, so they moved me in to fill her spot and gave my room to someone else. He double checked, but there weren't any other singles available. He apologized for the inconvenience and gave me my key card. I was flabbergasted. "Well," said Molly, "we might as well go check it out at least." We found our way down to the deck where the cabin was located. The room itself was not much bigger than a walk-in closet. A chair, a little night stand, a mirror on the bathroom door, a bed against the wall. That was it. We looked at each other. "Kind of smaller than I would have thought," I said. "Yeah," she agreed. I corralled a passing steward. "Um, we were supposed to be getting a double room?" I showed him the printout. "Yes, yes," he said in his helpful foreign accent. "Very nice double cabin." "But there's only one bed." I said. "Double bed," he explained. Then he gestured toward the porthole on the wall. "Ocean view!" He smiled, happy to have been of service, and went on about his way. Molly didn't look altogether convinced. I sighed. "Let me go talk to the Bursar again,” But she was sizing things up. Sunshine was streaming in through the porthole. Our two suitcases had been placed in a little niche beside the bathroom door, side by side. "All the other rooms are probably just as small," she said. "On this level anyway. And they seem to have already given your other room away." She looked at me. "Do you snore?" It wasn't a question I was expecting. "I don't think so. No one's ever complained." "Well, Mrs. Pendergast does, apparently. That's the one thing I've been dreading the most." She looked back at the room. "I guess this is just what double rooms are like on cruise ships. Maybe it's not so bad. At least you don't snore. We're kind of on an adventure anyway. Maybe we should just try and make the best of it." She made it sound as if sharing a room with a complete stranger of the opposite sex was no bigger a deal than sharing a table with him at lunch. She sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the schedule of the day's activities as if the issue had already been decided. "Shuffleboard lessons at three o'clock," she noted. "Bingo at four thirty." I sat down on the chair. So instead of getting a room of my own I was going to have to share this one? Surely there must be some other alternative. What if,  what if I asked Denise to ask Ciara to move in here with Molly and let me bunk with Jack? Ugh! I cringed at the thought. "A magic show tonight in the forward theatre." Molly announced; reading more literature. I looked around. How would it even work? The room was so tiny. There was only the one bed. Molly was studying a map of the ship. "What do you think we should do first?" She'd not only accepted the fact that we'd be rooming together, she was ready to head out and start exploring. "Um,  why don't you just go ahead on your own? I've still got a couple things I need to take care of first." I couldn't tell if she was a bit hurt that I didn't want to join her. But she shrugged it off. "Well, OK. Then I guess we can just meet back up here later." I didn't really have anything I needed to take care of, I just wanted a little time to sort things out. I was pretty bummed that they'd given away my single. And I wasn't sure how I felt about Molly's matter-of-fact-ness. Was she really so used to sharing rooms with random guys? Still, if I did have to share a room with someone, Molly was probably no more objectionable than Jack or Mrs. Pendergast. She was more my age. She was just out of college and I had a few years on her. She seemed pretty easy going. If we'd been thrown together as partners at a workshop breakout session, I wouldn't have objected. But sharing insights at a breakout session wasn't exactly the same as sharing a cabin on a cruise ship. I'd had to share rooms with strangers before, but they'd always been guys. What you did was you put on your blinders, you put up your shields, you went about your business, you let them go about theirs. You tried to be polite. At least that's the way it worked with guys. Did it work that way with girls too? I guess I'd find out. The ship must have cast off soon after we came on board, but so smoothly that we hadn't even noticed. By the time I found my way up on deck we'd already cleared the harbor and were quite a ways out from land. I stood at the railing and watched the waves roll by. I wondered whether I might get seasick, but the deck was as firm and steady as any sidewalk on the mainland. The ship turned out to be a whole little city unto itself. There was a miniature golf course at one end and a climbing wall at the other. The top deck held two full-sized swimming pools, each already surrounded by sun bathers glistening in cocoa butter. The lower decks held lounges and theaters and eateries and nightclubs. There were shops and kiosks on every level; a sports bar, a wine bar, two piano bars, a margarita bar ("Hi, Jack! Hi, Ciara!"); and any number of different ways to get from any one place to any other: by stairs, by elevator, by main passageway, by side passageway. Later in the afternoon I sat down at a little coffee shop toward the stern of the ship and nursed a cup of lapsang souchong. Seagulls were gliding along in our tailwind. I'd been making good progress on a couple algorithms at work, and I went over some of the key steps in my mind. It was nice being out of the cubicle for a change, sitting in the sunshine, daydreaming instead of coding, watching the seagulls hover and veer. My thoughts eventually wandered back to my room situation. I still couldn't understand why Molly was being so agreeable about sharing the cabin. It dawned on me that maybe she didn't think she had any other choice. Maybe she thought that since she was only here as Mrs. Pendergast's guest, she had to do whatever Denise asked. And so maybe she wasn't really all that used to sharing rooms with random guys either. Maybe she was just doing what she thought was expected. A fellow shipmate, a sort-of member of the same social group she was sort of a member of, needed a place to bunk. She had an empty spot. Didn't shipboard etiquette kind of dictate that she offer to share? But then, by the same token, what did shipboard etiquette expect of me? I finished my tea and ambled back toward the front of the ship. A raucous game of volleyball was taking place in one of the pools. Someone called my name. "Are you going back to the room? I forgot my card." It was Molly. She gave her little shrug. She was wearing a bright yellow bikini. It was fairly conservative, the kind she could wear to the gym, but it called your attention to her shapely legs and her slender tummy. We made our way down the labyrinth of passageways toward our lower deck. The people we passed would have naturally assumed that we were together. "I figured out about dinner," she said. "Everybody has an assigned time and an assigned table. Ours is in about an hour. We can go together if you want." After a couple of wrong turns we finally found our corridor and our little room. It hadn't gotten any bigger in the time we'd been away. But there was a fresh bath towel sitting on the bed, folded into a sort of soft-origami swan. "Look how cute," Molly said. "The housekeepers must have been in." She put her things on the nightstand and fiddled in her suitcase for some clothes. "I'm just going to take a quick shower first." She went into the bathroom, taking the swan along with her. I sat on the foot of the bed and took a look at the schedule. The walls were thin enough that I could hear the water splashing. She came out wrapped in the towel. "It's too cramped to get dressed in there," she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. She looked around the room, a bit awkwardly. So this was one of the guys-and-girls-sharing-a-cabin rules that I wasn't really familiar with. What was I supposed to do while she got dressed? Step into the bathroom to give her some privacy? Or just ignore her, the way I would if I was sharing the room with a guy? She wasn't completely sure how to play it either. She turned to face the mirror, but that only put her sideways to me. So she turned all the way around, facing the outer door. She tried to give the impression that changing clothes in front of a cabin mate wasn't that big a deal. So I tried to follow her lead. I didn't stare, and she had her back to me, but it was hard not to notice what she was doing. She started by putting on her bra, but as she was pulling it up, her towel slipped, revealing the two round, pretty cheeks of her bottom. She quickly pulled the towel back into place, and I quickly forced my eyes back to the schedule. So it was only with my peripheral vision that I was able to see her stepping into her panties and skirt and buttoning up her blouse. Finally she sat on the chair to fasten her sandals. Our eyes met again. She sighed, then admitted. "I work in a clinic. I often have to help clients get over themselves, when they have to disrobe for an exam, in front of someone they don't know. I think I have better empathy, now. Oh, Dinner is supposed to be smart casual." she remarked. I took that to mean that my polo shirt didn't quite cut it. I'd brought a couple button-down shirts, and so I went over and got one from my suitcase. She nodded approvingly and turned to the mirror, fiddling with her hair. I took off my polo shirt and put on the button one. The dining room was immense, with big round tables like in a reception hall. Molly and I were assigned to a table with some of the other people from our group. I let Molly sit next to Ciara. There was nobody on my other side, which was fine with me. Molly and Ciara found some girl stuff to talk about. The general conversation at the table seemed to be about motorcycles. Denise stopped by to see how everyone was doing. Molly had the chicken and I had the fish. We resisted the hard liquor, but we both had a glass of wine with our meal. Valentin, our engaging Bulgarian waiter, brought us the chit. We had both just assumed that wine was included in the meal, but he explained that it would be added to our room bill. "Will they charge it to Mrs. Pendergast?" Molly whispered, afraid they might. "We'll figure it out," I whispered back, signing for both of us. The magic show didn't start until eight o'clock, so after dinner Molly suggested we just wander around. She showed me the little art gallery she'd discovered on deck six where it met the central atrium. Photographs of interesting doorways on old, rustic buildings. Just past the art gallery was a little gift shop. We went in, and Molly looked at the jewelry counter. She asked the lady to bring out a necklace that caught her eye. I leafed through the post cards, but I didn't really have anyone to send one to. We still had forty-five minutes until the show, so I took Molly up to the miniature golf course. We didn't bother keeping score. I made a couple lucky shots. Then, on the next-to-the-last hole, Molly's shot went wild and bounced onto the next green over. It ricocheted off a bumper and coasted down, curving gently, right into the cup. A perfect hole in one into the wrong hole! "Whoa!" I said. "Remind me never to play you for money." She raised her putter and blew on the end as if it were a smoking rifle barrel. "You should see me at pinball." The magic show was a lot of fun. The magician wore a black hat and cape and his pretty assistant wore a slinky black dress. They did all the traditional tricks with rings and scarves and giant cards. Then, for the grand finale, the magician announced that he was going to make his assistant disappear right before our very eyes. He had her stand at the front of the stage with her arms up and out to the crowd. He waved his wand and, Presto!, she didn't disappear, but her dress did! It was just gone! She kept standing there for a second with her breasts completely exposed and nothing covering her at all except a tiny G-string thong. Finally she realized what had happened. She shrieked, covered herself with her hands, and ran offstage, letting us see that her backside was just as shapely as her front. The magician was shocked that his trick had backfired. Shocked! But the audience was applauding wildly, and so he turned and bowed. And as he swept off his hat, what should fall out but the assistant's little black dress. He picked it up and gave us a sly grin. The assistant came out to take her bow, wrapped in a white ship's towel just like the one Molly had been wearing. When she saw what the magician had in his hand, she snatched it back from him with a nasty glare. The crowd ate it up. Molly was laughing as much as I was. After the show we went back up on deck and strolled a while in the cool night air. The ship was plowing along through moonlit waves, stars twinkling in the sky. Toward the stern, lively dance music was thumping up from the nightclubs below. We found our way down to check it out. We spotted Jack and Ciara in the hip-hop club amidst the flashing strobe lights and pulsing lasers. Jack raised his glass and Ciara called something we didn't quite catch. Further on was the salsa club, throbbing with its own level of intensity. Then came the golden oldies club, somewhat more subdued. And finally a relatively quiet lounge where we sat down and shared a bottle of sparkling water. "It's pretty amazing, isn't it?" Molly said. "I never thought there would be so many different things going on. A whole resort on a single ship! And they can just hoist up the anchor and sail us away to wherever they want to take us." I had to agree. "And the way it's so completely self-contained. I mean, what could we possibly want that they aren't already completely stocked up on? The whole rest of the world could just go ahead and blow itself up and we wouldn't even notice." It had been a pleasant evening. And Denise had been right: it had been fun to have a buddy to share it with. But now we were heading back to our little room, and we had to turn our attention to the more mundane aspects of cabin sharing. Molly went to the bathroom first, and then I did, and then neither of us was quite sure how to proceed. It was becoming pretty clear that she wasn't any more familiar with cabin sharing than I was. Both of us kept looking at the bed. It was up against the outer wall, and almost as long as the cabin was wide. It was going to be awkward getting to the side against the wall without disturbing the other person. Presumably the cabin-sharing etiquette book would have had something to say. I decided that one of us should at least try to pretend that they knew what they were doing. "Would you mind if I took the side with the ocean view?" That seemed like the most gentlemanly arrangement. She didn't argue, and in fact I think she was relieved to have the issue resolved. She opened her suitcase and brought out a pair of frilly, sky-blue pajamas. She looked around again and then turned her back like she had before. I sat down at the foot of the bed. I hadn't even thought to bring any pajamas myself. Well, there wasn't much I could do about it now. I took off my shoes and socks and tried not to pay any undue attention to what she was doing. She stepped into her pajama bottoms and pulled them up under her skirt before taking it off. Then she pulled off her blouse and put on her pajama top so quickly that I caught only the briefest glimpse of her bra strap. Then she reached in under the top, unhooked her bra, and fished it out. Meanwhile, I'd taken off my shirt and pants. I figured I could slip under the covers without her seeing me in my underwear. But then I realized that she'd had a perfect view in the bathroom-door mirror all along. She didn't let on, though. That seemed to be the universal rule of awkward cabin sharing, for girls as well as for guys. Just go about your business and let your cabin mate go about theirs. I crawled up onto the far side of the bed, trying not to notice if she was paying any attention. She turned off the light and got in on her side. I'd had to share beds with other guys before on occasion. What you do is turn your back, keep yourself perfectly still, and imagine that there is an invisible force field that insulates your half of the bed from the entire rest of the universe. I quickly discovered, however, that this technique is not that effective when the person lying beside you is a pretty girl in frilly pajamas. I got such a hard-on that I was sure she could sense it, even though we had our backs turned. So I thought about my algorithms. I rehearsed an upcoming seminar presentation of their salient features. And then I rehearsed it again. And then I rehearsed it again. Sunlight was shining in through the porthole again when I woke up the next morning. Molly was still asleep, but I needed to pee. I edged out of bed, trying my best not to disturb her. I went to the bathroom, then quietly got dressed and slipped out of the room. There were only a few people up on deck at this hour. We'd sailed during the night and were now anchored at the entrance to the harbor at Catalina Island. It was a beautiful morning, the water a rich cerulean blue, the harbor dotted with rows of pretty boats. I came back down and found a dining room that served breakfast. I had a bite and brought back coffee and a roll for Molly. She was up, but still in her pajamas. I told her about the island and tried to show her through the porthole. The way the ship was facing, though, we were only able to see the rugged hills of the island and not the harbor itself. By mid-morning she had talked me into going in to shore with her. It was like being transported back in time to the sunny southern California you see in old-time newsreels: palm trees, cute bungalows, handsome, sun-tanned people sitting at outdoor cafes or lounging under colorful beach umbrellas. We walked all the way along the beachfront to the palatial ballroom at the end, admiring its lovely art-deco mosaics of naked mermaids cavorting amidst swirling kelp forests and playful schools of fish. The huge round floor of the ballroom itself was dark and empty on this weekday morning, but photos along the walls showed elegantly dressed couples waltzing at the annual New Year's Eve ball. Molly was enchanted. "Let's come back for it, want to?" "I'm afraid my ballroom dancing is a little rusty." "Well, you'll have to brush up then." We strolled back along the main boulevard amidst tourists and tradesmen and shopping housewives. We looked in the windows of the boutiques and souvenir shops and had lunch at one of the sidewalk cafes. Molly filled me in on all the latest gossip about the interns and nurses at her clinic. I told her a bit about my algorithms. I may have gotten a little carried away, actually, but she did her best to follow along. Our map showed a botanical garden a couple miles out of town. Molly was game, so after lunch we rented a tourist cart and headed off to look for it. I drove and Molly navigated, and after a few wrong turns we found ourselves bumping along into the dusty interior of the island. It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and we had the place pretty much to ourselves. It had never even occurred to me that there were botanical gardens devoted almost entirely to cactus. I'd certainly never imagined there were so many different varieties: towering suaros like in the cowboy movies; rough organ pipes that shimmered like coral formations on the floor of some strange alien sea; fuzzy white phalluses that tried to lure you into thinking they were cuddly enough to pet; plump barrel cactus with swirling patterns of pristine spikes as geometrically perfect as Faberge eggs. Molly discovered a sprawling specimen that must have taken up a half a city block. It was covered with prickly green Mickey Mouse ears, and on the whole rugged plant there was one lone ear that held a single tiny delicate yellow flower. "That's what I want for my corsage," she said. "When we come back for New Year's Eve." We eventually bumped our way back into town and dropped off the cart. The tender back to the ship was pretty full, and Molly and I had to press up shoulder-to-shoulder on the bench. She closed her eyes in the afternoon sunshine. "A perfect day," she murmured. "And tonight's the gala dinner. And gambling!" "Gala dinner?" She opened one eye just enough to give me a look. "You were supposed to bring a sport coat. It was in the brochure." When we got back to the room we found our towel on the nightstand, folded into the shape of a jungle cat, ready to pounce. I had brought my sports coat, but it was pretty creased from being crammed in my suitcase. Molly hung it in the bathroom when she went in to take her shower. Then when she was done I took my own, making sure to give her plenty of time to get dressed. I cracked the door to see if the coast was clear. She was making her final adjustments in the mirror and stepped aside to let me out. She was wearing a lilac gown with a sequined top and a long swishy skirt. "I got it on sale," she shrugged. But I could tell from the way she kept looking at herself in the mirror that she was pretty pleased with it. Now I was the one who had to get dressed in front of her. I just went at it cabin-buddy style, turning my back and pulling things up under my towel like she had done. When I fetched my sports coat from the bathroom, the creases were a little less noticeable. We made our way up to the dining room. It was nice, actually, being a little dressed up. I found myself walking a little taller, standing a little straighter. Molly took my arm as we made our way to the table, and everyone paused to look. Molly and Ciara chatted about shopping on the island. It turned out that Jack knew something about cacti from his landscaping work and was interested to hear about the botanical garden. The appetizers were oysters on the half shell. It was my first time eating them, and Molly showed me what to do. By the time that dinner was over, the ship had gotten far enough out to sea that the casino was open. Molly walked right in as if she knew what she was doing. She got ten dollars' worth of quarters, and I pitched in another ten, trying my best to match her air of confident sophistication. She went to one of the poker machines, and I drew up a stool beside her. "So what's this system of yours? Or is it a secret?" "I only play until I run out of quarters. That way I never lose more than I'm willing to spend." I didn't think that that was what people meant by a "system," but I didn't say anything. I watched her play a few hands. The machine would deal out five cards. She would select which ones she wanted to keep, and the machine would replace the others. "I usually just bet a quarter. But if we're going to pool our money, we can bet two at a time, OK?" I finally figured out how it worked. If we got anything less than a pair of jacks, the machine would keep our money. If we got jacks or better, it would give us our money back. If we got an even better hand, like two pairs or three of a kind, it would pay out according to a table posted on the screen. All the way up to a hundred bucks for a royal flush. We lost our first few quarters, but then we got three aces, and the machine clunked us six shiny new quarters back out. Molly would study each hand carefully before making her selection. She pretty much chose the same cards that I would have chosen, except she was a little over-optimistic about our chances of getting a straight or a flush. On one hand the machine dealt us the jack and king of diamonds, along with a pair of eights. She eagerly selected to keep the jack and the king. "No, no," I told her. "Keep the eights." "But we have a chance for a royal flush." "But the odds are better for getting another eight." She gave me her look of patient exasperation. "Because look,” I tried to say. But she wasn't particularly interested in my analysis. "OK, Mr. Algorithm." She changed the selection. The machine dealt us a queen, a three, and a six and beeped the forlorn tone that meant "better luck next time." Molly flashed me her told-you-so eyebrows. "Well, we wouldn't have gotten the royal flush either." "Not if we didn't even try!" There was one moment of genuine excitement when we got a full house, sixes and queens. The machine clanged like crazy and quarters came pouring out. But eventually every one of them got re-deposited, never to be seen again. It wasn't really gambling so much as just playing a video game. An enjoyable one, though. There was the dress-up aspect, the battle of wits, the allure of the hundred-dollar jackpot. Molly certainly enjoyed playing, and I enjoyed watching her. I noticed that it was almost time for the show. "Juggling?" Molly wasn't so sure. She rattled our cup. "We still have a few quarters left." "Yes, juggling! I'll have you know that I minored in juggling in college. Come on. It'll be fun." The show was in the forward theatre again, right next to the casino. The Flying Garbanzo Brothers! Hup Hup! Four strapping guys with streaming hair and Frank Zappa mustaches, dressed in colorful gypsy blouses and billowing pantaloons. They juggled everything from tennis balls to bowling pins to pineapples to power tools. One of the brothers, Yakov, had a rakish, devil-may-care attitude and was always grinning at the ladies in the audience. In one of the acts, as balls were whizzing back and forth across the stage, he started making eyes at a blonde in the front row. He began paying less and less attention to his juggling, occasionally letting a ball fly past him, which one of the other brothers would then have to lurch out of formation to keep in play. Finally he just gave up on the juggling altogether and sat down on the edge of the stage, chatting the lady up. The other brothers were flailing frantically to keep all the balls in the air. They began to retire them, one by one, but somehow the very last ball went out of control and arched way up high toward the front of the stage. Yakov casually reached his hand out to the side and caught it without even looking. "Ladies and gentlemen!" announced Ripov, the black brother with dreads, "For our grand finale, a feat of blistering dexterity so flagrantly dangerous that it has never before been attempted within the enclosed confines of a luxury liner!" The brothers proceeded to arrange a panoply of torches and hoops and bales of combustible material all around the stage. Yakov came out sporting a mischievous grin and lugging a big red can, labeled 'gasoline.' Just as he was about to douse the first bale, the stagehand stormed in, a short oriental fellow in a white lab coat and thick black glasses, squawking in a barely intelligible accent and waving the ubiquitous ship safety placard, the one with the picture of the lifesaver on it. Yakov's grin collapsed into a sneer, but he put down the can. "Still never attempted," he muttered under his breath. The brothers juggled the torches anyway, unlit but unwieldy, back and forth through the hoops and over the bales. Suddenly red and orange crepe-paper streamers unfurled and rose up, flickering like flames and giving the impression, at least, of a roaring inferno. All in all, it was enough to get your blood pumping. When the show was over there was a bit of a traffic jam getting out of the theater. I grabbed Molly's hand and dragged her toward a less crowded side exit. Hup hup! We found ourselves in a stateroom passageway, and I kept dragging her along at a rapid pace. "Where are we going?" she asked. "C'mon," I replied. The fact is, I didn't really know. At the end of the passage was a short stairway up to a bulkhead door. We went through and found ourselves outside on a little deck by the lifeboats. The sun had set, but you could still see the frothy wave caps. At the end of the deck was another stairway, and at the top was the entrance to the miniature golf. I still didn't know exactly what I was looking for, but it wasn't miniature golf. There was another way to go, though, even further forward, right along the edge of the bow. Molly was panting from our frantic pace, but she was keeping up. We'd reached the very front of the ship. The image of Leonardo DeCaprio holding Kate Winslet on the bow of the Titanic flashed into my mind. That's what I wanted! Moonlight! Sea spray! Violins! But the forward view was all walled off. The only thing you could see, if you turned around, was the bridge, looming up above us, ominously dark except for the eerie glow from the radar screens. There was a stairway leading up to it, but the sign said "Authorized personnel only." "Kind of not what I was expecting," I said. "Oh, well," she said. She pulled us across to the other side where another deckway led back aft. The wall there was not so high, and we stood for a while, watching the foamy caps and the unbounded emptiness. We had engine noises instead of violins and a stinging wind instead of an enchanted spray. "Do you think they'd even bother to tell us?" she wondered. "Tell us?" "If the world blew itself up." But the wind was just too fierce. We retreated back to the more sheltered parts of the ship. This time Jack and Ciara were in the Salsa Club. They waved us in. "What are you having?" Jack yelled over the music, heading for the bar. Ciara and Molly had to half shout to hear each other. Jack came back with something tall and fruity for Molly and something short and amber colored for me. The music was catchy and persistent. Jack held out his hand and led Molly onto the dance floor. They made a handsome couple: Jack rugged and manly, Molly fresh and pretty. I felt a twinge of jealousy. Molly knew a lot of steps, and she was clearly enjoying herself. I gave Ciara an awkward smile and we walked out to join them. It turned out that Ciara was quite a dancer too. She would lose herself in the music, letting her willowy body become an instrument of its expression. I felt kind of bad that she was stuck having me as her partner, but the dance floor was crowded and she didn't seem to mind. When the song ended, she smiled and put her hand on my arm as she caught her breath. She was attractive, with long, honey-blonde hair and a captivating smile. A bit older than me, but not that much. I tried to picture the two of us going out after we got back home. By the third song it was no longer really clear any more who was dancing with whom. Ciara and Molly were dancing next to each other and laughing together at something one of them had said. Then Ciara turned her attention to Jack, and he gave her a few of the moves that her dancing so richly deserved. They made a striking couple too, in a different way than Jack and Molly. They seemed more appropriate for each other, somehow, a better fit. And there was a genuine cozy affection between them that I could imagine outlasting the cruise. Meanwhile, Molly was dancing beside me now, her freshness and joyful enthusiasm now beamed my way. That seemed more appropriate too. Molly and I finally called it a night. It had been a long, eventful day: mermaids, cacti, sea spray, dancing. We made our way down the corridor to the little room that was beginning to feel more and more like home. I took off my coat. Molly's hair was a bit mussed, but she looked happy, as if her day had been as full and eventful as mine had been. I brought my arms up to give her a little hug. I figured that the rules of cabin etiquette wouldn't begrudge us one little hug. But she stepped into it, and before I knew it we were kissing, a kiss that continued as we shuffled our way toward the bed. We sat down. I put my hand on her shoulder and ran it over her sequined back. She touched my face and let her tongue brush my lips. I stroked her side and whispily brushed her breast. She drew in her breath, then reached behind herself and undid her clasp. Her bodice slipped down like a sequined snake skin, revealing the more luminous, more tender skin beneath. Her breasts were perfect, pale and shy, each one frankly punctuated by a bashful, yearning nipple. I couldn't help but lean in and encircle one of them with my lips, tasting it gently with my own tongue. She held me softly there. The rules of cabin etiquette, it seemed, had been suspended by mutual consent. She lifted herself just enough to slip her gown off the rest of the way. She draped it over the chair and gave me the bashful version of her shrug. We had to get ready for bed after all. I undressed too, placing my clothes on top of hers. She lay down, wearing only her panties. I took off everything and lay down beside her. We glided our hands over each other's arms, over each other's sides, over each other's hips. My penis was sticking out like a sore thumb, but I just let it. I caressed her firm bottom and hitched her closer so that our thighs touched, so that her nipples grazed my chest. I slipped my hand down inside her panties to be even closer to the smooth, cool touch of her skin. Always before, one part of my brain would already have been working out the logistics of getting us back where we would need to go when we were finished. But tonight those concerns were blissfully absent. We were both already right where we needed to be, right in the very bed where we would be spending the night. But there was one concern I couldn't put aside. "I'm afraid I didn't think to bring any protection. Do you think the gift shop might still be open?" "It's okay," she murmured. "I'm protected." We kissed again. She reached down and slipped off her last remaining piece of clothing. So now we both were naked, lying together in each other's arms, in the very bed where we were going to spend the night. It wasn't that I didn't know what to do next, it was just that I was a little bashful to be the one to initiate it. And, truth be told, I was more than happy just to be doing what we were doing, lying together so intimately, so completely within each other's personal space, so fully accepting, so fully accepted. If that was going to be enough for her, it was certainly plenty enough for me. But I didn't object when she knelt up, and straddled my thighs, and took my rigid penis in her hand, and glided her moist vagina down upon it. Neither of us said a word. Partly it was shyness, but partly it was just because there was no need to muddle up with words what our entwined bodies were already saying so well without them. To be continued. By HectorBidon for Literotica.

This is Episode 59 of the Consortium Podcast, an academic audio blog of Kepler Education. In this episode, Timothy Knotts, Chief Philosophical Officer and Bursar for the New England Consortium of Classical Educators, delivers the opening keynote address for the 2024 conference in Maynard, MA on July 12-13, 2024. Kepler's Consortiums provide resources and regional connections for Christian families, teachers, and educational organizations to expand the reach of classical education and foster human flourishing for generations to come. The New England Consortium of Classical Educators (NECCE) exists to point New England to the unifying Truth found in Christ and His creation, the Good of fellowship with like-minded individuals, and the Beauty reflected in great works of literature, science, and art, through teaching, conversation, and conferences.----more---- Timothy Knotts is a co-founder of the Consortium, and lives in Windsor, Connecticut with his wife, Cynthia, and their four protégés. He is the author of Reasoning Together: Philosophy, a soon to be released high school introduction to philosophy, and is occasionally published on the CiRCE and Kepler blogs. Timothy is a Lead Curriculum Developer for Classical Conversations, a CiRCE Institute certified master teacher, a recovering attorney, an amateur poet, and lover of the beautiful.

Strangers forced to share a cabin on a cruise ship.By HectorBidon. Listen to the Podcast at Steamy Stories.The waiting area outside the Long Beach cruise terminal was abuzz with bright new outfits and happy chatter. It was enough to make even the most reserved introvert start to feel a bit of excitement.I was standing with Jack and Ciara, two regulars of the social group. Jack was tall and rugged, something to do with landscaping; Ciara tall and willowy, worked in an office of some sort. They weren’t an official couple, as far as I knew, but they seemed to have hooked up for the New Year's Pacific cruise. That was sort of the way the group worked. Thirty somethings, mostly divorced, intent on maintaining the hard playing lifestyle of their twenties, looking for like-minded dating partners to do it with.Jack was explaining the different cruise drink payment plans. I smiled politely and nodded, thinking how different from theirs my life would be when I got to be their age.Denise bustled up in a pretty pastel pantsuit with her clipboard in her hand. She was a travel agent and the mother hen of the group, forty-something and no longer trying so hard to pretend she was any younger. She'd put together this group and made a nice extra income for her troubles.“Hector,” she said, ushering me a step aside, “I’m afraid there’s been a mix up with your reservation. Somehow your single cabin didn’t show up on the final printout.” She gave me a concerned look. “They’re working on it,,  but we may have to double you up with someone.”This came as a bit of a rude surprise. One of the only reasons I’d finally agreed to come on the cruise in the first place had been her assurance that I’d be able to have a single. It wasn’t that I was antisocial really, but I had my limits.“You know Mrs. Pendergast, don’t you?”Mrs. Pendergast was an older woman, well into her sixties. She wasn’t a regular member of the group, but it amused her sometimes to hang with a younger crowd. The group let her tag along to some of their events. I was going to have to share a room with Mrs. Pendergast?“Apparently she got sick and had to cancel at the last minute. So we have an opening. She was sharing a room with, ah;” she double checked her forms; “a Ms. Crenshaw. I don’t know her, but I’m sure she’s very nice. It’s a double room, and you know how it is on a cruise. You don’t spend that much time in your room anyway.”I didn’t even try to return her smile.“They’re still working on your single, of course. I just wanted to let you know the fallback plan.”Not only losing my single, but having to spend the cruise being polite to an old lady? In Denise’s mind, that was what the social group was all about.People were already starting to go into the terminal building when Denise came back, this time with an attractive young woman at her side. I wondered if it was Denise’s daughter, there to see us off.“Hector,” she said, peering at me over the top of her glasses, “this is Molly Crenshaw. I’ve been explaining our predicament.”The girl gave me a weak smile. She was pretty, with long brown hair swept back, wearing white shorts and a light blue top. She didn’t look like she could be a day over twenty-one. Not at all what I had pictured as a travelling companion for Mrs. Pendergast.“It’s a double room,” Denise was explaining. “I’m sure they’ll be able to rig up a partition if need be. But this will be the first cruise for both of you. It will be nice to have a buddy to help you find your way around. I’m sure the two of you will hit it off.”Molly was still looking at me rather uncertainly. This apparently wasn’t exactly what she had signed up for, either. She looked back at Denise. “Well, if his other room got cancelled,”Denise was delighted. The registration mix-up had been solved in an efficient and social-group-positive way. I couldn’t believe she was being so cavalier about putting a guy and a girl who didn’t even know each other into the same room together."They’re still working on my single though, right?”“As far as I know. You’ll be able to check with the Bursar once we get on board.”Denise had more than enough smile for the three of us. They called our area for boarding.“See you on board,” she said, bustling off with her clipboard.Going up the gangway onto the ship itself kind of blew me away. You entered onto the mezzanine level of what looked like the fanciest mall I’d ever seen. There was an atrium that rose several stories high with glass elevators gliding up and down and fancy shops and glittering lights on every different level. On the floor below us a fellow in a tuxedo was playing a grand piano. All of this right in the middle of the ship. Molly’s eyes were as wide as mine.They’d told us to have lunch while the luggage was being brought on. Molly and I had come aboard with a bunch of other social groupers, but they’d all buzzed off one way or another leaving the two of us by ourselves. We found a little sandwich and salad buffet.“So, your first cruise?” I asked. I was pretty sure I’d be able to get the room situation straightened out, but there was no harm in being polite.She assembled a forkful of salad. “Yes, Mrs. Pendergast is a patient at the clinic where I work. She’s pretty chatty, you know. She kept talking about this fantastic cruise she was going on. But she needed a travelling companion to come along and sort of look after her.” She shrugged. “ Mrs. Pendergast offered to cover the cost, if I'd come with. I don’t know, she has a way of getting what she wants.”“Is she all right?” I asked.“Denise says she’s afraid she might be coming down with something. She’s a bit of a hypochondriac. But the tickets are already paid for, and I’m already here, so Denise said I should just come along on the cruise without her.” She gave her little shrug again and took a sip of iced tea. “Your first cruise too?”“I’m not really a member of the social group, actually. I went on a nature hike with them one time and ended up on Denise’s list. So now she sends me emails every time she has some big event. She was kind of persistent this time. I think they needed to sign up a certain number of people in order to get a discount or something.”Molly nodded and stabbed a crouton. “Well, it is a cruise. It should be fun. And it’ll be nice not to have to keep tabs on Mrs. Pendergast all the time. There’s gambling, you know. When we get far enough out to sea.”“You gamble?”“Of course. Poker, black jack. Machines mostly, but sometimes at the tables. I have a system. It’s a lot of fun.”After lunch I asked my way up to the Bursar’s office. Molly came along to make sure that everything worked out. The Bursar looked me up in his computer. Apparently, when Mrs. Pendergast had cancelled, they’d looked to fill the vacancy with someone from our same group. I was the only one in a single, so they moved me in to fill her spot and gave my room to someone else. He double checked, but there weren’t any other singles available. He apologized for the inconvenience and gave me my key card.I was flabbergasted.“Well,” said Molly, “we might as well go check it out at least.”We found our way down to the deck where the cabin was located. The room itself was not much bigger than a walk-in closet. A chair, a little night stand, a mirror on the bathroom door, a bed against the wall. That was it. We looked at each other.“Kind of smaller than I would have thought,” I said.“Yeah,” she agreed.I corralled a passing steward.“Um, we were supposed to be getting a double room?” I showed him the printout.“Yes, yes,” he said in his helpful foreign accent. “Very nice double cabin.”“But there’s only one bed.” I said.“Double bed,” he explained. Then he gestured toward the porthole on the wall. “Ocean view!” He smiled, happy to have been of service, and went on about his way.Molly didn’t look altogether convinced.I sighed. “Let me go talk to the Bursar again,”But she was sizing things up. Sunshine was streaming in through the porthole. Our two suitcases had been placed in a little niche beside the bathroom door, side by side."All the other rooms are probably just as small,” she said. “On this level anyway. And they seem to have already given your other room away.” She looked at me. “Do you snore?”It wasn’t a question I was expecting. “I don’t think so. No one’s ever complained.”“Well, Mrs. Pendergast does, apparently. That’s the one thing I’ve been dreading the most.” She looked back at the room. “I guess this is just what double rooms are like on cruise ships. Maybe it’s not so bad. At least you don’t snore. We’re kind of on an adventure anyway. Maybe we should just try and make the best of it.”She made it sound as if sharing a room with a complete stranger of the opposite sex was no bigger a deal than sharing a table with him at lunch. She sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the schedule of the day’s activities as if the issue had already been decided.“Shuffleboard lessons at three o'clock,” she noted. “Bingo at four thirty.”I sat down on the chair. So instead of getting a room of my own I was going to have to share this one? Surely there must be some other alternative. What if,  what if I asked Denise to ask Ciara to move in here with Molly and let me bunk with Jack? Ugh! I cringed at the thought.“A magic show tonight in the forward theatre.” Molly announced; reading more literature.I looked around. How would it even work? The room was so tiny. There was only the one bed.Molly was studying a map of the ship. “What do you think we should do first?” She’d not only accepted the fact that we’d be rooming together, she was ready to head out and start exploring.“Um,  why don’t you just go ahead on your own? I’ve still got a couple things I need to take care of first.”I couldn’t tell if she was a bit hurt that I didn’t want to join her. But she shrugged it off. “Well, OK. Then I guess we can just meet back up here later.”I didn’t really have anything I needed to take care of, I just wanted a little time to sort things out. I was pretty bummed that they’d given away my single. And I wasn’t sure how I felt about Molly’s matter-of-fact-ness. Was she really so used to sharing rooms with random guys?Still, if I did have to share a room with someone, Molly was probably no more objectionable than Jack or Mrs. Pendergast. She was more my age. She was just out of college and I had a few years on her. She seemed pretty easy going. If we’d been thrown together as partners at a workshop breakout session, I wouldn’t have objected.But sharing insights at a breakout session wasn’t exactly the same as sharing a cabin on a cruise ship. I’d had to share rooms with strangers before, but they’d always been guys. What you did was you put on your blinders, you put up your shields, you went about your business, you let them go about theirs. You tried to be polite. At least that’s the way it worked with guys. Did it work that way with girls too?I guess I’d find out.The ship must have cast off soon after we came on board, but so smoothly that we hadn’t even noticed. By the time I found my way up on deck we’d already cleared the harbor and were quite a ways out from land. I stood at the railing and watched the waves roll by. I wondered whether I might get seasick, but the deck was as firm and steady as any sidewalk on the mainland.The ship turned out to be a whole little city unto itself. There was a miniature golf course at one end and a climbing wall at the other. The top deck held two full-sized swimming pools, each already surrounded by sun bathers glistening in cocoa butter. The lower decks held lounges and theaters and eateries and nightclubs. There were shops and kiosks on every level; a sports bar, a wine bar, two piano bars, a margarita bar (“Hi, Jack! Hi, Ciara!”); and any number of different ways to get from any one place to any other: by stairs, by elevator, by main passageway, by side passageway.Later in the afternoon I sat down at a little coffee shop toward the stern of the ship and nursed a cup of lapsang souchong. Seagulls were gliding along in our tailwind. I’d been making good progress on a couple algorithms at work, and I went over some of the key steps in my mind. It was nice being out of the cubicle for a change, sitting in the sunshine, daydreaming instead of coding, watching the seagulls hover and veer.My thoughts eventually wandered back to my room situation. I still couldn’t understand why Molly was being so agreeable about sharing the cabin. It dawned on me that maybe she didn’t think she had any other choice. Maybe she thought that since she was only here as Mrs. Pendergast’s guest, she had to do whatever Denise asked.And so maybe she wasn’t really all that used to sharing rooms with random guys either. Maybe she was just doing what she thought was expected. A fellow shipmate, a sort-of member of the same social group she was sort of a member of, needed a place to bunk. She had an empty spot. Didn’t shipboard etiquette kind of dictate that she offer to share? But then, by the same token, what did shipboard etiquette expect of me?I finished my tea and ambled back toward the front of the ship. A raucous game of volleyball was taking place in one of the pools. Someone called my name.“Are you going back to the room? I forgot my card.”It was Molly. She gave her little shrug. She was wearing a bright yellow bikini. It was fairly conservative, the kind she could wear to the gym, but it called your attention to her shapely legs and her slender tummy. We made our way down the labyrinth of passageways toward our lower deck. The people we passed would have naturally assumed that we were together.“I figured out about dinner,” she said. “Everybody has an assigned time and an assigned table. Ours is in about an hour. We can go together if you want.”After a couple of wrong turns we finally found our corridor and our little room. It hadn’t gotten any bigger in the time we’d been away. But there was a fresh bath towel sitting on the bed, folded into a sort of soft-origami swan.“Look how cute,” Molly said. “The housekeepers must have been in.”She put her things on the nightstand and fiddled in her suitcase for some clothes. “I’m just going to take a quick shower first.” She went into the bathroom, taking the swan along with her. I sat on the foot of the bed and took a look at the schedule. The walls were thin enough that I could hear the water splashing.She came out wrapped in the towel. “It’s too cramped to get dressed in there,” she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. She looked around the room, a bit awkwardly.So this was one of the guys-and-girls-sharing-a-cabin rules that I wasn’t really familiar with. What was I supposed to do while she got dressed? Step into the bathroom to give her some privacy? Or just ignore her, the way I would if I was sharing the room with a guy?She wasn’t completely sure how to play it either. She turned to face the mirror, but that only put her sideways to me. So she turned all the way around, facing the outer door. She tried to give the impression that changing clothes in front of a cabin mate wasn’t that big a deal. So I tried to follow her lead.I didn’t stare, and she had her back to me, but it was hard not to notice what she was doing. She started by putting on her bra, but as she was pulling it up, her towel slipped, revealing the two round, pretty cheeks of her bottom. She quickly pulled the towel back into place, and I quickly forced my eyes back to the schedule. So it was only with my peripheral vision that I was able to see her stepping into her panties and skirt and buttoning up her blouse.Finally she sat on the chair to fasten her sandals. Our eyes met again. She sighed, then admitted. “I work in a clinic. I often have to help clients get over themselves, when they have to disrobe for an exam, in front of someone they don't know. I think I have better empathy, now. Oh, Dinner is supposed to be smart casual.” she remarked.I took that to mean that my polo shirt didn’t quite cut it. I’d brought a couple button-down shirts, and so I went over and got one from my suitcase. She nodded approvingly and turned to the mirror, fiddling with her hair. I took off my polo shirt and put on the button one.The dining room was immense, with big round tables like in a reception hall. Molly and I were assigned to a table with some of the other people from our group. I let Molly sit next to Ciara. There was nobody on my other side, which was fine with me. Molly and Ciara found some girl stuff to talk about. The general conversation at the table seemed to be about motorcycles. Denise stopped by to see how everyone was doing.Molly had the chicken and I had the fish. We resisted the hard liquor, but we both had a glass of wine with our meal. Valentin, our engaging Bulgarian waiter, brought us the chit. We had both just assumed that wine was included in the meal, but he explained that it would be added to our room bill.“Will they charge it to Mrs. Pendergast?” Molly whispered, afraid they might.“We’ll figure it out,” I whispered back, signing for both of us.The magic show didn’t start until eight o'clock, so after dinner Molly suggested we just wander around. She showed me the little art gallery she’d discovered on deck six where it met the central atrium. Photographs of interesting doorways on old, rustic buildings. Just past the art gallery was a little gift shop. We went in, and Molly looked at the jewelry counter. She asked the lady to bring out a necklace that caught her eye. I leafed through the post cards, but I didn’t really have anyone to send one to.We still had forty-five minutes until the show, so I took Molly up to the miniature golf course. We didn’t bother keeping score. I made a couple lucky shots. Then, on the next-to-the-last hole, Molly’s shot went wild and bounced onto the next green over. It ricocheted off a bumper and coasted down, curving gently, right into the cup. A perfect hole in one into the wrong hole!“Whoa!” I said. “Remind me never to play you for money.”She raised her putter and blew on the end as if it were a smoking rifle barrel. “You should see me at pinball.”The magic show was a lot of fun. The magician wore a black hat and cape and his pretty assistant wore a slinky black dress. They did all the traditional tricks with rings and scarves and giant cards.Then, for the grand finale, the magician announced that he was going to make his assistant disappear right before our very eyes. He had her stand at the front of the stage with her arms up and out to the crowd. He waved his wand and, Presto!, she didn’t disappear, but her dress did! It was just gone! She kept standing there for a second with her breasts completely exposed and nothing covering her at all except a tiny G-string thong. Finally she realized what had happened. She shrieked, covered herself with her hands, and ran offstage, letting us see that her backside was just as shapely as her front.The magician was shocked that his trick had backfired. Shocked! But the audience was applauding wildly, and so he turned and bowed. And as he swept off his hat, what should fall out but the assistant’s little black dress. He picked it up and gave us a sly grin.The assistant came out to take her bow, wrapped in a white ship’s towel just like the one Molly had been wearing. When she saw what the magician had in his hand, she snatched it back from him with a nasty glare. The crowd ate it up. Molly was laughing as much as I was.After the show we went back up on deck and strolled a while in the cool night air. The ship was plowing along through moonlit waves, stars twinkling in the sky. Toward the stern, lively dance music was thumping up from the nightclubs below. We found our way down to check it out. We spotted Jack and Ciara in the hip-hop club amidst the flashing strobe lights and pulsing lasers. Jack raised his glass and Ciara called something we didn’t quite catch.Further on was the salsa club, throbbing with its own level of intensity. Then came the golden oldies club, somewhat more subdued. And finally a relatively quiet lounge where we sat down and shared a bottle of sparkling water.“It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?” Molly said. “I never thought there would be so many different things going on. A whole resort on a single ship! And they can just hoist up the anchor and sail us away to wherever they want to take us.”I had to agree. “And the way it’s so completely self-contained. I mean, what could we possibly want that they aren’t already completely stocked up on? The whole rest of the world could just go ahead and blow itself up and we wouldn’t even notice.”It had been a pleasant evening. And Denise had been right: it had been fun to have a buddy to share it with. But now we were heading back to our little room, and we had to turn our attention to the more mundane aspects of cabin sharing. Molly went to the bathroom first, and then I did, and then neither of us was quite sure how to proceed. It was becoming pretty clear that she wasn’t any more familiar with cabin sharing than I was.Both of us kept looking at the bed. It was up against the outer wall, and almost as long as the cabin was wide. It was going to be awkward getting to the side against the wall without disturbing the other person. Presumably the cabin-sharing etiquette book would have had something to say.I decided that one of us should at least try to pretend that they knew what they were doing.“Would you mind if I took the side with the ocean view?” That seemed like the most gentlemanly arrangement.She didn’t argue, and in fact I think she was relieved to have the issue resolved. She opened her suitcase and brought out a pair of frilly, sky-blue pajamas. She looked around again and then turned her back like she had before.I sat down at the foot of the bed. I hadn’t even thought to bring any pajamas myself. Well, there wasn’t much I could do about it now. I took off my shoes and socks and tried not to pay any undue attention to what she was doing.She stepped into her pajama bottoms and pulled them up under her skirt before taking it off. Then she pulled off her blouse and put on her pajama top so quickly that I caught only the briefest glimpse of her bra strap. Then she reached in under the top, unhooked her bra, and fished it out.Meanwhile, I’d taken off my shirt and pants. I figured I could slip under the covers without her seeing me in my underwear. But then I realized that she’d had a perfect view in the bathroom-door mirror all along. She didn’t let on, though. That seemed to be the universal rule of awkward cabin sharing, for girls as well as for guys. Just go about your business and let your cabin mate go about theirs.I crawled up onto the far side of the bed, trying not to notice if she was paying any attention. She turned off the light and got in on her side.I’d had to share beds with other guys before on occasion. What you do is turn your back, keep yourself perfectly still, and imagine that there is an invisible force field that insulates your half of the bed from the entire rest of the universe. I quickly discovered, however, that this technique is not that effective when the person lying beside you is a pretty girl in frilly pajamas. I got such a hard-on that I was sure she could sense it, even though we had our backs turned.So I thought about my algorithms. I rehearsed an upcoming seminar presentation of their salient features. And then I rehearsed it again. And then I rehearsed it again.Sunlight was shining in through the porthole again when I woke up the next morning. Molly was still asleep, but I needed to pee. I edged out of bed, trying my best not to disturb her. I went to the bathroom, then quietly got dressed and slipped out of the room.There were only a few people up on deck at this hour. We’d sailed during the night and were now anchored at the entrance to the harbor at Catalina Island. It was a beautiful morning, the water a rich cerulean blue, the harbor dotted with rows of pretty boats. I came back down and found a dining room that served breakfast. I had a bite and brought back coffee and a roll for Molly.She was up, but still in her pajamas. I told her about the island and tried to show her through the porthole. The way the ship was facing, though, we were only able to see the rugged hills of the island and not the harbor itself.By mid-morning she had talked me into going in to shore with her. It was like being transported back in time to the sunny southern California you see in old-time newsreels: palm trees, cute bungalows, handsome, sun-tanned people sitting at outdoor cafes or lounging under colorful beach umbrellas. We walked all the way along the beachfront to the palatial ballroom at the end, admiring its lovely art-deco mosaics of naked mermaids cavorting amidst swirling kelp forests and playful schools of fish.The huge round floor of the ballroom itself was dark and empty on this weekday morning, but photos along the walls showed elegantly dressed couples waltzing at the annual New Year’s Eve ball. Molly was enchanted.“Let’s come back for it, want to?”“I’m afraid my ballroom dancing is a little rusty.”“Well, you’ll have to brush up then.”We strolled back along the main boulevard amidst tourists and tradesmen and shopping housewives. We looked in the windows of the boutiques and souvenir shops and had lunch at one of the sidewalk cafes. Molly filled me in on all the latest gossip about the interns and nurses at her clinic. I told her a bit about my algorithms. I may have gotten a little carried away, actually, but she did her best to follow along.Our map showed a botanical garden a couple miles out of town. Molly was game, so after lunch we rented a tourist cart and headed off to look for it. I drove and Molly navigated, and after a few wrong turns we found ourselves bumping along into the dusty interior of the island.It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and we had the place pretty much to ourselves. It had never even occurred to me that there were botanical gardens devoted almost entirely to cactus. I’d certainly never imagined there were so many different varieties: towering suaros like in the cowboy movies; rough organ pipes that shimmered like coral formations on the floor of some strange alien sea; fuzzy white phalluses that tried to lure you into thinking they were cuddly enough to pet; plump barrel cactus with swirling patterns of pristine spikes as geometrically perfect as Faberge eggs.Molly discovered a sprawling specimen that must have taken up a half a city block. It was covered with prickly green Mickey Mouse ears, and on the whole rugged plant there was one lone ear that held a single tiny delicate yellow flower. “That’s what I want for my corsage,” she said. “When we come back for New Year's Eve.”We eventually bumped our way back into town and dropped off the cart. The tender back to the ship was pretty full, and Molly and I had to press up shoulder-to-shoulder on the bench. She closed her eyes in the afternoon sunshine.“A perfect day,” she murmured. “And tonight’s the gala dinner. And gambling!”“Gala dinner?”She opened one eye just enough to give me a look. “You were supposed to bring a sport coat. It was in the brochure.”When we got back to the room we found our towel on the nightstand, folded into the shape of a jungle cat, ready to pounce. I had brought my sports coat, but it was pretty creased from being crammed in my suitcase. Molly hung it in the bathroom when she went in to take her shower. Then when she was done I took my own, making sure to give her plenty of time to get dressed.I cracked the door to see if the coast was clear. She was making her final adjustments in the mirror and stepped aside to let me out. She was wearing a lilac gown with a sequined top and a long swishy skirt.“I got it on sale,” she shrugged. But I could tell from the way she kept looking at herself in the mirror that she was pretty pleased with it.Now I was the one who had to get dressed in front of her. I just went at it cabin-buddy style, turning my back and pulling things up under my towel like she had done. When I fetched my sports coat from the bathroom, the creases were a little less noticeable.We made our way up to the dining room. It was nice, actually, being a little dressed up. I found myself walking a little taller, standing a little straighter. Molly took my arm as we made our way to the table, and everyone paused to look.Molly and Ciara chatted about shopping on the island. It turned out that Jack knew something about cacti from his landscaping work and was interested to hear about the botanical garden. The appetizers were oysters on the half shell. It was my first time eating them, and Molly showed me what to do.By the time that dinner was over, the ship had gotten far enough out to sea that the casino was open. Molly walked right in as if she knew what she was doing. She got ten dollars' worth of quarters, and I pitched in another ten, trying my best to match her air of confident sophistication.She went to one of the poker machines, and I drew up a stool beside her. “So what’s this system of yours? Or is it a secret?”“I only play until I run out of quarters. That way I never lose more than I’m willing to spend.”I didn’t think that that was what people meant by a “system,” but I didn’t say anything. I watched her play a few hands. The machine would deal out five cards. She would select which ones she wanted to keep, and the machine would replace the others.“I usually just bet a quarter. But if we’re going to pool our money, we can bet two at a time, OK?”I finally figured out how it worked. If we got anything less than a pair of jacks, the machine would keep our money. If we got jacks or better, it would give us our money back. If we got an even better hand, like two pairs or three of a kind, it would pay out according to a table posted on the screen. All the way up to a hundred bucks for a royal flush. We lost our first few quarters, but then we got three aces, and the machine clunked us six shiny new quarters back out.Molly would study each hand carefully before making her selection. She pretty much chose the same cards that I would have chosen, except she was a little over-optimistic about our chances of getting a straight or a flush.On one hand the machine dealt us the jack and king of diamonds, along with a pair of eights. She eagerly selected to keep the jack and the king.“No, no,” I told her. “Keep the eights.”“But we have a chance for a royal flush.”“But the odds are better for getting another eight.”She gave me her look of patient exasperation.“Because look,” I tried to say.But she wasn’t particularly interested in my analysis. "OK, Mr. Algorithm.” She changed the selection. The machine dealt us a queen, a three, and a six and beeped the forlorn tone that meant “better luck next time.”Molly flashed me her told-you-so eyebrows.“Well, we wouldn’t have gotten the royal flush either.”“Not if we didn’t even try!”There was one moment of genuine excitement when we got a full house, sixes and queens. The machine clanged like crazy and quarters came pouring out. But eventually every one of them got re-deposited, never to be seen again. It wasn’t really gambling so much as just playing a video game. An enjoyable one, though. There was the dress-up aspect, the battle of wits, the allure of the hundred-dollar jackpot. Molly certainly enjoyed playing, and I enjoyed watching her.I noticed that it was almost time for the show.“Juggling?” Molly wasn’t so sure. She rattled our cup. “We still have a few quarters left.”“Yes, juggling! I’ll have you know that I minored in juggling in college. Come on. It’ll be fun.”The show was in the forward theatre again, right next to the casino. The Flying Garbanzo Brothers! Hup Hup! Four strapping guys with streaming hair and Frank Zappa mustaches, dressed in colorful gypsy blouses and billowing pantaloons. They juggled everything from tennis balls to bowling pins to pineapples to power tools.One of the brothers, Yakov, had a rakish, devil-may-care attitude and was always grinning at the ladies in the audience. In one of the acts, as balls were whizzing back and forth across the stage, he started making eyes at a blonde in the front row. He began paying less and less attention to his juggling, occasionally letting a ball fly past him, which one of the other brothers would then have to lurch out of formation to keep in play.Finally he just gave up on the juggling altogether and sat down on the edge of the stage, chatting the lady up. The other brothers were flailing frantically to keep all the balls in the air. They began to retire them, one by one, but somehow the very last ball went out of control and arched way up high toward the front of the stage. Yakov casually reached his hand out to the side and caught it without even looking.“Ladies and gentlemen!” announced Ripov, the black brother with dreads, “For our grand finale, a feat of blistering dexterity so flagrantly dangerous that it has never before been attempted within the enclosed confines of a luxury liner!” The brothers proceeded to arrange a panoply of torches and hoops and bales of combustible material all around the stage. Yakov came out sporting a mischievous grin and lugging a big red can, labeled ‘gasoline.’ Just as he was about to douse the first bale, the stagehand stormed in, a short oriental fellow in a white lab coat and thick black glasses, squawking in a barely intelligible accent and waving the ubiquitous ship safety placard, the one with the picture of the lifesaver on it.Yakov’s grin collapsed into a sneer, but he put down the can. “Still never attempted,” he muttered under his breath. The brothers juggled the torches anyway, unlit but unwieldy, back and forth through the hoops and over the bales. Suddenly red and orange crepe-paper streamers unfurled and rose up, flickering like flames and giving the impression, at least, of a roaring inferno. All in all, it was enough to get your blood pumping.When the show was over there was a bit of a traffic jam getting out of the theater. I grabbed Molly’s hand and dragged her toward a less crowded side exit. Hup hup! We found ourselves in a stateroom passageway, and I kept dragging her along at a rapid pace.“Where are we going?” she asked.“C'mon,” I replied. The fact is, I didn’t really know. At the end of the passage was a short stairway up to a bulkhead door. We went through and found ourselves outside on a little deck by the lifeboats. The sun had set, but you could still see the frothy wave caps.At the end of the deck was another stairway, and at the top was the entrance to the miniature golf. I still didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, but it wasn’t miniature golf. There was another way to go, though, even further forward, right along the edge of the bow.Molly was panting from our frantic pace, but she was keeping up. We’d reached the very front of the ship. The image of Leonardo DeCaprio holding Kate Winslet on the bow of the Titanic flashed into my mind. That’s what I wanted! Moonlight! Sea spray! Violins!But the forward view was all walled off. The only thing you could see, if you turned around, was the bridge, looming up above us, ominously dark except for the eerie glow from the radar screens. There was a stairway leading up to it, but the sign said “Authorized personnel only.”“Kind of not what I was expecting,” I said.“Oh, well,” she said. She pulled us across to the other side where another deckway led back aft. The wall there was not so high, and we stood for a while, watching the foamy caps and the unbounded emptiness. We had engine noises instead of violins and a stinging wind instead of an enchanted spray.“Do you think they’d even bother to tell us?” she wondered.“Tell us?”“If the world blew itself up.”But the wind was just too fierce. We retreated back to the more sheltered parts of the ship.This time Jack and Ciara were in the Salsa Club. They waved us in.“What are you having?” Jack yelled over the music, heading for the bar. Ciara and Molly had to half shout to hear each other. Jack came back with something tall and fruity for Molly and something short and amber colored for me.The music was catchy and persistent. Jack held out his hand and led Molly onto the dance floor. They made a handsome couple: Jack rugged and manly, Molly fresh and pretty. I felt a twinge of jealousy. Molly knew a lot of steps, and she was clearly enjoying herself. I gave Ciara an awkward smile and we walked out to join them.It turned out that Ciara was quite a dancer too. She would lose herself in the music, letting her willowy body become an instrument of its expression. I felt kind of bad that she was stuck having me as her partner, but the dance floor was crowded and she didn’t seem to mind.When the song ended, she smiled and put her hand on my arm as she caught her breath. She was attractive, with long, honey-blonde hair and a captivating smile. A bit older than me, but not that much. I tried to picture the two of us going out after we got back home.By the third song it was no longer really clear any more who was dancing with whom. Ciara and Molly were dancing next to each other and laughing together at something one of them had said. Then Ciara turned her attention to Jack, and he gave her a few of the moves that her dancing so richly deserved. They made a striking couple too, in a different way than Jack and Molly. They seemed more appropriate for each other, somehow, a better fit. And there was a genuine cozy affection between them that I could imagine outlasting the cruise.Meanwhile, Molly was dancing beside me now, her freshness and joyful enthusiasm now beamed my way. That seemed more appropriate too.Molly and I finally called it a night. It had been a long, eventful day: mermaids, cacti, sea spray, dancing. We made our way down the corridor to the little room that was beginning to feel more and more like home.I took off my coat. Molly’s hair was a bit mussed, but she looked happy, as if her day had been as full and eventful as mine had been.I brought my arms up to give her a little hug. I figured that the rules of cabin etiquette wouldn’t begrudge us one little hug. But she stepped into it, and before I knew it we were kissing, a kiss that continued as we shuffled our way toward the bed.We sat down. I put my hand on her shoulder and ran it over her sequined back. She touched my face and let her tongue brush my lips. I stroked her side and whispily brushed her breast. She drew in her breath, then reached behind herself and undid her clasp. Her bodice slipped down like a sequined snake skin, revealing the more luminous, more tender skin beneath.Her breasts were perfect, pale and shy, each one frankly punctuated by a bashful, yearning nipple. I couldn’t help but lean in and encircle one of them with my lips, tasting it gently with my own tongue. She held me softly there. The rules of cabin etiquette, it seemed, had been suspended by mutual consent.She lifted herself just enough to slip her gown off the rest of the way. She draped it over the chair and gave me the bashful version of her shrug. We had to get ready for bed after all. I undressed too, placing my clothes on top of hers. She lay down, wearing only her panties. I took off everything and lay down beside her.We glided our hands over each other’s arms, over each other’s sides, over each other’s hips. My penis was sticking out like a sore thumb, but I just let it. I caressed her firm bottom and hitched her closer so that our thighs touched, so that her nipples grazed my chest. I slipped my hand down inside her panties to be even closer to the smooth, cool touch of her skin.Always before, one part of my brain would already have been working out the logistics of getting us back where we would need to go when we were finished. But tonight those concerns were blissfully absent. We were both already right where we needed to be, right in the very bed where we would be spending the night.But there was one concern I couldn’t put aside. “I’m afraid I didn’t think to bring any protection. Do you think the gift shop might still be open?”“It’s okay,” she murmured. “I’m protected.”We kissed again. She reached down and slipped off her last remaining piece of clothing. So now we both were naked, lying together in each other’s arms, in the very bed where we were going to spend the night.It wasn’t that I didn’t know what to do next, it was just that I was a little bashful to be the one to initiate it. And, truth be told, I was more than happy just to be doing what we were doing, lying together so intimately, so completely within each other’s personal space, so fully accepting, so fully accepted. If that was going to be enough for her, it was certainly plenty enough for me.But I didn’t object when she knelt up, and straddled my thighs, and took my rigid penis in her hand, and glided her moist vagina down upon it.Neither of us said a word. Partly it was shyness, but partly it was just because there was no need to muddle up with words what our entwined bodies were already saying so well without them.To be continued.By HectorBidon for Literotica.

Strangers forced to share a cabin on a cruise ship.By HectorBidon. Listen to the Podcast at Steamy Stories.The waiting area outside the Long Beach cruise terminal was abuzz with bright new outfits and happy chatter. It was enough to make even the most reserved introvert start to feel a bit of excitement.I was standing with Jack and Ciara, two regulars of the social group. Jack was tall and rugged, something to do with landscaping; Ciara tall and willowy, worked in an office of some sort. They weren’t an official couple, as far as I knew, but they seemed to have hooked up for the New Year's Pacific cruise. That was sort of the way the group worked. Thirty somethings, mostly divorced, intent on maintaining the hard playing lifestyle of their twenties, looking for like-minded dating partners to do it with.Jack was explaining the different cruise drink payment plans. I smiled politely and nodded, thinking how different from theirs my life would be when I got to be their age.Denise bustled up in a pretty pastel pantsuit with her clipboard in her hand. She was a travel agent and the mother hen of the group, forty-something and no longer trying so hard to pretend she was any younger. She'd put together this group and made a nice extra income for her troubles.“Hector,” she said, ushering me a step aside, “I’m afraid there’s been a mix up with your reservation. Somehow your single cabin didn’t show up on the final printout.” She gave me a concerned look. “They’re working on it,,  but we may have to double you up with someone.”This came as a bit of a rude surprise. One of the only reasons I’d finally agreed to come on the cruise in the first place had been her assurance that I’d be able to have a single. It wasn’t that I was antisocial really, but I had my limits.“You know Mrs. Pendergast, don’t you?”Mrs. Pendergast was an older woman, well into her sixties. She wasn’t a regular member of the group, but it amused her sometimes to hang with a younger crowd. The group let her tag along to some of their events. I was going to have to share a room with Mrs. Pendergast?“Apparently she got sick and had to cancel at the last minute. So we have an opening. She was sharing a room with, ah;” she double checked her forms; “a Ms. Crenshaw. I don’t know her, but I’m sure she’s very nice. It’s a double room, and you know how it is on a cruise. You don’t spend that much time in your room anyway.”I didn’t even try to return her smile.“They’re still working on your single, of course. I just wanted to let you know the fallback plan.”Not only losing my single, but having to spend the cruise being polite to an old lady? In Denise’s mind, that was what the social group was all about.People were already starting to go into the terminal building when Denise came back, this time with an attractive young woman at her side. I wondered if it was Denise’s daughter, there to see us off.“Hector,” she said, peering at me over the top of her glasses, “this is Molly Crenshaw. I’ve been explaining our predicament.”The girl gave me a weak smile. She was pretty, with long brown hair swept back, wearing white shorts and a light blue top. She didn’t look like she could be a day over twenty-one. Not at all what I had pictured as a travelling companion for Mrs. Pendergast.“It’s a double room,” Denise was explaining. “I’m sure they’ll be able to rig up a partition if need be. But this will be the first cruise for both of you. It will be nice to have a buddy to help you find your way around. I’m sure the two of you will hit it off.”Molly was still looking at me rather uncertainly. This apparently wasn’t exactly what she had signed up for, either. She looked back at Denise. “Well, if his other room got cancelled,”Denise was delighted. The registration mix-up had been solved in an efficient and social-group-positive way. I couldn’t believe she was being so cavalier about putting a guy and a girl who didn’t even know each other into the same room together."They’re still working on my single though, right?”“As far as I know. You’ll be able to check with the Bursar once we get on board.”Denise had more than enough smile for the three of us. They called our area for boarding.“See you on board,” she said, bustling off with her clipboard.Going up the gangway onto the ship itself kind of blew me away. You entered onto the mezzanine level of what looked like the fanciest mall I’d ever seen. There was an atrium that rose several stories high with glass elevators gliding up and down and fancy shops and glittering lights on every different level. On the floor below us a fellow in a tuxedo was playing a grand piano. All of this right in the middle of the ship. Molly’s eyes were as wide as mine.They’d told us to have lunch while the luggage was being brought on. Molly and I had come aboard with a bunch of other social groupers, but they’d all buzzed off one way or another leaving the two of us by ourselves. We found a little sandwich and salad buffet.“So, your first cruise?” I asked. I was pretty sure I’d be able to get the room situation straightened out, but there was no harm in being polite.She assembled a forkful of salad. “Yes, Mrs. Pendergast is a patient at the clinic where I work. She’s pretty chatty, you know. She kept talking about this fantastic cruise she was going on. But she needed a travelling companion to come along and sort of look after her.” She shrugged. “ Mrs. Pendergast offered to cover the cost, if I'd come with. I don’t know, she has a way of getting what she wants.”“Is she all right?” I asked.“Denise says she’s afraid she might be coming down with something. She’s a bit of a hypochondriac. But the tickets are already paid for, and I’m already here, so Denise said I should just come along on the cruise without her.” She gave her little shrug again and took a sip of iced tea. “Your first cruise too?”“I’m not really a member of the social group, actually. I went on a nature hike with them one time and ended up on Denise’s list. So now she sends me emails every time she has some big event. She was kind of persistent this time. I think they needed to sign up a certain number of people in order to get a discount or something.”Molly nodded and stabbed a crouton. “Well, it is a cruise. It should be fun. And it’ll be nice not to have to keep tabs on Mrs. Pendergast all the time. There’s gambling, you know. When we get far enough out to sea.”“You gamble?”“Of course. Poker, black jack. Machines mostly, but sometimes at the tables. I have a system. It’s a lot of fun.”After lunch I asked my way up to the Bursar’s office. Molly came along to make sure that everything worked out. The Bursar looked me up in his computer. Apparently, when Mrs. Pendergast had cancelled, they’d looked to fill the vacancy with someone from our same group. I was the only one in a single, so they moved me in to fill her spot and gave my room to someone else. He double checked, but there weren’t any other singles available. He apologized for the inconvenience and gave me my key card.I was flabbergasted.“Well,” said Molly, “we might as well go check it out at least.”We found our way down to the deck where the cabin was located. The room itself was not much bigger than a walk-in closet. A chair, a little night stand, a mirror on the bathroom door, a bed against the wall. That was it. We looked at each other.“Kind of smaller than I would have thought,” I said.“Yeah,” she agreed.I corralled a passing steward.“Um, we were supposed to be getting a double room?” I showed him the printout.“Yes, yes,” he said in his helpful foreign accent. “Very nice double cabin.”“But there’s only one bed.” I said.“Double bed,” he explained. Then he gestured toward the porthole on the wall. “Ocean view!” He smiled, happy to have been of service, and went on about his way.Molly didn’t look altogether convinced.I sighed. “Let me go talk to the Bursar again,”But she was sizing things up. Sunshine was streaming in through the porthole. Our two suitcases had been placed in a little niche beside the bathroom door, side by side."All the other rooms are probably just as small,” she said. “On this level anyway. And they seem to have already given your other room away.” She looked at me. “Do you snore?”It wasn’t a question I was expecting. “I don’t think so. No one’s ever complained.”“Well, Mrs. Pendergast does, apparently. That’s the one thing I’ve been dreading the most.” She looked back at the room. “I guess this is just what double rooms are like on cruise ships. Maybe it’s not so bad. At least you don’t snore. We’re kind of on an adventure anyway. Maybe we should just try and make the best of it.”She made it sound as if sharing a room with a complete stranger of the opposite sex was no bigger a deal than sharing a table with him at lunch. She sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up the schedule of the day’s activities as if the issue had already been decided.“Shuffleboard lessons at three o'clock,” she noted. “Bingo at four thirty.”I sat down on the chair. So instead of getting a room of my own I was going to have to share this one? Surely there must be some other alternative. What if,  what if I asked Denise to ask Ciara to move in here with Molly and let me bunk with Jack? Ugh! I cringed at the thought.“A magic show tonight in the forward theatre.” Molly announced; reading more literature.I looked around. How would it even work? The room was so tiny. There was only the one bed.Molly was studying a map of the ship. “What do you think we should do first?” She’d not only accepted the fact that we’d be rooming together, she was ready to head out and start exploring.“Um,  why don’t you just go ahead on your own? I’ve still got a couple things I need to take care of first.”I couldn’t tell if she was a bit hurt that I didn’t want to join her. But she shrugged it off. “Well, OK. Then I guess we can just meet back up here later.”I didn’t really have anything I needed to take care of, I just wanted a little time to sort things out. I was pretty bummed that they’d given away my single. And I wasn’t sure how I felt about Molly’s matter-of-fact-ness. Was she really so used to sharing rooms with random guys?Still, if I did have to share a room with someone, Molly was probably no more objectionable than Jack or Mrs. Pendergast. She was more my age. She was just out of college and I had a few years on her. She seemed pretty easy going. If we’d been thrown together as partners at a workshop breakout session, I wouldn’t have objected.But sharing insights at a breakout session wasn’t exactly the same as sharing a cabin on a cruise ship. I’d had to share rooms with strangers before, but they’d always been guys. What you did was you put on your blinders, you put up your shields, you went about your business, you let them go about theirs. You tried to be polite. At least that’s the way it worked with guys. Did it work that way with girls too?I guess I’d find out.The ship must have cast off soon after we came on board, but so smoothly that we hadn’t even noticed. By the time I found my way up on deck we’d already cleared the harbor and were quite a ways out from land. I stood at the railing and watched the waves roll by. I wondered whether I might get seasick, but the deck was as firm and steady as any sidewalk on the mainland.The ship turned out to be a whole little city unto itself. There was a miniature golf course at one end and a climbing wall at the other. The top deck held two full-sized swimming pools, each already surrounded by sun bathers glistening in cocoa butter. The lower decks held lounges and theaters and eateries and nightclubs. There were shops and kiosks on every level; a sports bar, a wine bar, two piano bars, a margarita bar (“Hi, Jack! Hi, Ciara!”); and any number of different ways to get from any one place to any other: by stairs, by elevator, by main passageway, by side passageway.Later in the afternoon I sat down at a little coffee shop toward the stern of the ship and nursed a cup of lapsang souchong. Seagulls were gliding along in our tailwind. I’d been making good progress on a couple algorithms at work, and I went over some of the key steps in my mind. It was nice being out of the cubicle for a change, sitting in the sunshine, daydreaming instead of coding, watching the seagulls hover and veer.My thoughts eventually wandered back to my room situation. I still couldn’t understand why Molly was being so agreeable about sharing the cabin. It dawned on me that maybe she didn’t think she had any other choice. Maybe she thought that since she was only here as Mrs. Pendergast’s guest, she had to do whatever Denise asked.And so maybe she wasn’t really all that used to sharing rooms with random guys either. Maybe she was just doing what she thought was expected. A fellow shipmate, a sort-of member of the same social group she was sort of a member of, needed a place to bunk. She had an empty spot. Didn’t shipboard etiquette kind of dictate that she offer to share? But then, by the same token, what did shipboard etiquette expect of me?I finished my tea and ambled back toward the front of the ship. A raucous game of volleyball was taking place in one of the pools. Someone called my name.“Are you going back to the room? I forgot my card.”It was Molly. She gave her little shrug. She was wearing a bright yellow bikini. It was fairly conservative, the kind she could wear to the gym, but it called your attention to her shapely legs and her slender tummy. We made our way down the labyrinth of passageways toward our lower deck. The people we passed would have naturally assumed that we were together.“I figured out about dinner,” she said. “Everybody has an assigned time and an assigned table. Ours is in about an hour. We can go together if you want.”After a couple of wrong turns we finally found our corridor and our little room. It hadn’t gotten any bigger in the time we’d been away. But there was a fresh bath towel sitting on the bed, folded into a sort of soft-origami swan.“Look how cute,” Molly said. “The housekeepers must have been in.”She put her things on the nightstand and fiddled in her suitcase for some clothes. “I’m just going to take a quick shower first.” She went into the bathroom, taking the swan along with her. I sat on the foot of the bed and took a look at the schedule. The walls were thin enough that I could hear the water splashing.She came out wrapped in the towel. “It’s too cramped to get dressed in there,” she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. She looked around the room, a bit awkwardly.So this was one of the guys-and-girls-sharing-a-cabin rules that I wasn’t really familiar with. What was I supposed to do while she got dressed? Step into the bathroom to give her some privacy? Or just ignore her, the way I would if I was sharing the room with a guy?She wasn’t completely sure how to play it either. She turned to face the mirror, but that only put her sideways to me. So she turned all the way around, facing the outer door. She tried to give the impression that changing clothes in front of a cabin mate wasn’t that big a deal. So I tried to follow her lead.I didn’t stare, and she had her back to me, but it was hard not to notice what she was doing. She started by putting on her bra, but as she was pulling it up, her towel slipped, revealing the two round, pretty cheeks of her bottom. She quickly pulled the towel back into place, and I quickly forced my eyes back to the schedule. So it was only with my peripheral vision that I was able to see her stepping into her panties and skirt and buttoning up her blouse.Finally she sat on the chair to fasten her sandals. Our eyes met again. She sighed, then admitted. “I work in a clinic. I often have to help clients get over themselves, when they have to disrobe for an exam, in front of someone they don't know. I think I have better empathy, now. Oh, Dinner is supposed to be smart casual.” she remarked.I took that to mean that my polo shirt didn’t quite cut it. I’d brought a couple button-down shirts, and so I went over and got one from my suitcase. She nodded approvingly and turned to the mirror, fiddling with her hair. I took off my polo shirt and put on the button one.The dining room was immense, with big round tables like in a reception hall. Molly and I were assigned to a table with some of the other people from our group. I let Molly sit next to Ciara. There was nobody on my other side, which was fine with me. Molly and Ciara found some girl stuff to talk about. The general conversation at the table seemed to be about motorcycles. Denise stopped by to see how everyone was doing.Molly had the chicken and I had the fish. We resisted the hard liquor, but we both had a glass of wine with our meal. Valentin, our engaging Bulgarian waiter, brought us the chit. We had both just assumed that wine was included in the meal, but he explained that it would be added to our room bill.“Will they charge it to Mrs. Pendergast?” Molly whispered, afraid they might.“We’ll figure it out,” I whispered back, signing for both of us.The magic show didn’t start until eight o'clock, so after dinner Molly suggested we just wander around. She showed me the little art gallery she’d discovered on deck six where it met the central atrium. Photographs of interesting doorways on old, rustic buildings. Just past the art gallery was a little gift shop. We went in, and Molly looked at the jewelry counter. She asked the lady to bring out a necklace that caught her eye. I leafed through the post cards, but I didn’t really have anyone to send one to.We still had forty-five minutes until the show, so I took Molly up to the miniature golf course. We didn’t bother keeping score. I made a couple lucky shots. Then, on the next-to-the-last hole, Molly’s shot went wild and bounced onto the next green over. It ricocheted off a bumper and coasted down, curving gently, right into the cup. A perfect hole in one into the wrong hole!“Whoa!” I said. “Remind me never to play you for money.”She raised her putter and blew on the end as if it were a smoking rifle barrel. “You should see me at pinball.”The magic show was a lot of fun. The magician wore a black hat and cape and his pretty assistant wore a slinky black dress. They did all the traditional tricks with rings and scarves and giant cards.Then, for the grand finale, the magician announced that he was going to make his assistant disappear right before our very eyes. He had her stand at the front of the stage with her arms up and out to the crowd. He waved his wand and, Presto!, she didn’t disappear, but her dress did! It was just gone! She kept standing there for a second with her breasts completely exposed and nothing covering her at all except a tiny G-string thong. Finally she realized what had happened. She shrieked, covered herself with her hands, and ran offstage, letting us see that her backside was just as shapely as her front.The magician was shocked that his trick had backfired. Shocked! But the audience was applauding wildly, and so he turned and bowed. And as he swept off his hat, what should fall out but the assistant’s little black dress. He picked it up and gave us a sly grin.The assistant came out to take her bow, wrapped in a white ship’s towel just like the one Molly had been wearing. When she saw what the magician had in his hand, she snatched it back from him with a nasty glare. The crowd ate it up. Molly was laughing as much as I was.After the show we went back up on deck and strolled a while in the cool night air. The ship was plowing along through moonlit waves, stars twinkling in the sky. Toward the stern, lively dance music was thumping up from the nightclubs below. We found our way down to check it out. We spotted Jack and Ciara in the hip-hop club amidst the flashing strobe lights and pulsing lasers. Jack raised his glass and Ciara called something we didn’t quite catch.Further on was the salsa club, throbbing with its own level of intensity. Then came the golden oldies club, somewhat more subdued. And finally a relatively quiet lounge where we sat down and shared a bottle of sparkling water.“It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?” Molly said. “I never thought there would be so many different things going on. A whole resort on a single ship! And they can just hoist up the anchor and sail us away to wherever they want to take us.”I had to agree. “And the way it’s so completely self-contained. I mean, what could we possibly want that they aren’t already completely stocked up on? The whole rest of the world could just go ahead and blow itself up and we wouldn’t even notice.”It had been a pleasant evening. And Denise had been right: it had been fun to have a buddy to share it with. But now we were heading back to our little room, and we had to turn our attention to the more mundane aspects of cabin sharing. Molly went to the bathroom first, and then I did, and then neither of us was quite sure how to proceed. It was becoming pretty clear that she wasn’t any more familiar with cabin sharing than I was.Both of us kept looking at the bed. It was up against the outer wall, and almost as long as the cabin was wide. It was going to be awkward getting to the side against the wall without disturbing the other person. Presumably the cabin-sharing etiquette book would have had something to say.I decided that one of us should at least try to pretend that they knew what they were doing.“Would you mind if I took the side with the ocean view?” That seemed like the most gentlemanly arrangement.She didn’t argue, and in fact I think she was relieved to have the issue resolved. She opened her suitcase and brought out a pair of frilly, sky-blue pajamas. She looked around again and then turned her back like she had before.I sat down at the foot of the bed. I hadn’t even thought to bring any pajamas myself. Well, there wasn’t much I could do about it now. I took off my shoes and socks and tried not to pay any undue attention to what she was doing.She stepped into her pajama bottoms and pulled them up under her skirt before taking it off. Then she pulled off her blouse and put on her pajama top so quickly that I caught only the briefest glimpse of her bra strap. Then she reached in under the top, unhooked her bra, and fished it out.Meanwhile, I’d taken off my shirt and pants. I figured I could slip under the covers without her seeing me in my underwear. But then I realized that she’d had a perfect view in the bathroom-door mirror all along. She didn’t let on, though. That seemed to be the universal rule of awkward cabin sharing, for girls as well as for guys. Just go about your business and let your cabin mate go about theirs.I crawled up onto the far side of the bed, trying not to notice if she was paying any attention. She turned off the light and got in on her side.I’d had to share beds with other guys before on occasion. What you do is turn your back, keep yourself perfectly still, and imagine that there is an invisible force field that insulates your half of the bed from the entire rest of the universe. I quickly discovered, however, that this technique is not that effective when the person lying beside you is a pretty girl in frilly pajamas. I got such a hard-on that I was sure she could sense it, even though we had our backs turned.So I thought about my algorithms. I rehearsed an upcoming seminar presentation of their salient features. And then I rehearsed it again. And then I rehearsed it again.Sunlight was shining in through the porthole again when I woke up the next morning. Molly was still asleep, but I needed to pee. I edged out of bed, trying my best not to disturb her. I went to the bathroom, then quietly got dressed and slipped out of the room.There were only a few people up on deck at this hour. We’d sailed during the night and were now anchored at the entrance to the harbor at Catalina Island. It was a beautiful morning, the water a rich cerulean blue, the harbor dotted with rows of pretty boats. I came back down and found a dining room that served breakfast. I had a bite and brought back coffee and a roll for Molly.She was up, but still in her pajamas. I told her about the island and tried to show her through the porthole. The way the ship was facing, though, we were only able to see the rugged hills of the island and not the harbor itself.By mid-morning she had talked me into going in to shore with her. It was like being transported back in time to the sunny southern California you see in old-time newsreels: palm trees, cute bungalows, handsome, sun-tanned people sitting at outdoor cafes or lounging under colorful beach umbrellas. We walked all the way along the beachfront to the palatial ballroom at the end, admiring its lovely art-deco mosaics of naked mermaids cavorting amidst swirling kelp forests and playful schools of fish.The huge round floor of the ballroom itself was dark and empty on this weekday morning, but photos along the walls showed elegantly dressed couples waltzing at the annual New Year’s Eve ball. Molly was enchanted.“Let’s come back for it, want to?”“I’m afraid my ballroom dancing is a little rusty.”“Well, you’ll have to brush up then.”We strolled back along the main boulevard amidst tourists and tradesmen and shopping housewives. We looked in the windows of the boutiques and souvenir shops and had lunch at one of the sidewalk cafes. Molly filled me in on all the latest gossip about the interns and nurses at her clinic. I told her a bit about my algorithms. I may have gotten a little carried away, actually, but she did her best to follow along.Our map showed a botanical garden a couple miles out of town. Molly was game, so after lunch we rented a tourist cart and headed off to look for it. I drove and Molly navigated, and after a few wrong turns we found ourselves bumping along into the dusty interior of the island.It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and we had the place pretty much to ourselves. It had never even occurred to me that there were botanical gardens devoted almost entirely to cactus. I’d certainly never imagined there were so many different varieties: towering suaros like in the cowboy movies; rough organ pipes that shimmered like coral formations on the floor of some strange alien sea; fuzzy white phalluses that tried to lure you into thinking they were cuddly enough to pet; plump barrel cactus with swirling patterns of pristine spikes as geometrically perfect as Faberge eggs.Molly discovered a sprawling specimen that must have taken up a half a city block. It was covered with prickly green Mickey Mouse ears, and on the whole rugged plant there was one lone ear that held a single tiny delicate yellow flower. “That’s what I want for my corsage,” she said. “When we come back for New Year's Eve.”We eventually bumped our way back into town and dropped off the cart. The tender back to the ship was pretty full, and Molly and I had to press up shoulder-to-shoulder on the bench. She closed her eyes in the afternoon sunshine.“A perfect day,” she murmured. “And tonight’s the gala dinner. And gambling!”“Gala dinner?”She opened one eye just enough to give me a look. “You were supposed to bring a sport coat. It was in the brochure.”When we got back to the room we found our towel on the nightstand, folded into the shape of a jungle cat, ready to pounce. I had brought my sports coat, but it was pretty creased from being crammed in my suitcase. Molly hung it in the bathroom when she went in to take her shower. Then when she was done I took my own, making sure to give her plenty of time to get dressed.I cracked the door to see if the coast was clear. She was making her final adjustments in the mirror and stepped aside to let me out. She was wearing a lilac gown with a sequined top and a long swishy skirt.“I got it on sale,” she shrugged. But I could tell from the way she kept looking at herself in the mirror that she was pretty pleased with it.Now I was the one who had to get dressed in front of her. I just went at it cabin-buddy style, turning my back and pulling things up under my towel like she had done. When I fetched my sports coat from the bathroom, the creases were a little less noticeable.We made our way up to the dining room. It was nice, actually, being a little dressed up. I found myself walking a little taller, standing a little straighter. Molly took my arm as we made our way to the table, and everyone paused to look.Molly and Ciara chatted about shopping on the island. It turned out that Jack knew something about cacti from his landscaping work and was interested to hear about the botanical garden. The appetizers were oysters on the half shell. It was my first time eating them, and Molly showed me what to do.By the time that dinner was over, the ship had gotten far enough out to sea that the casino was open. Molly walked right in as if she knew what she was doing. She got ten dollars' worth of quarters, and I pitched in another ten, trying my best to match her air of confident sophistication.She went to one of the poker machines, and I drew up a stool beside her. “So what’s this system of yours? Or is it a secret?”“I only play until I run out of quarters. That way I never lose more than I’m willing to spend.”I didn’t think that that was what people meant by a “system,” but I didn’t say anything. I watched her play a few hands. The machine would deal out five cards. She would select which ones she wanted to keep, and the machine would replace the others.“I usually just bet a quarter. But if we’re going to pool our money, we can bet two at a time, OK?”I finally figured out how it worked. If we got anything less than a pair of jacks, the machine would keep our money. If we got jacks or better, it would give us our money back. If we got an even better hand, like two pairs or three of a kind, it would pay out according to a table posted on the screen. All the way up to a hundred bucks for a royal flush. We lost our first few quarters, but then we got three aces, and the machine clunked us six shiny new quarters back out.Molly would study each hand carefully before making her selection. She pretty much chose the same cards that I would have chosen, except she was a little over-optimistic about our chances of getting a straight or a flush.On one hand the machine dealt us the jack and king of diamonds, along with a pair of eights. She eagerly selected to keep the jack and the king.“No, no,” I told her. “Keep the eights.”“But we have a chance for a royal flush.”“But the odds are better for getting another eight.”She gave me her look of patient exasperation.“Because look,” I tried to say.But she wasn’t particularly interested in my analysis. "OK, Mr. Algorithm.” She changed the selection. The machine dealt us a queen, a three, and a six and beeped the forlorn tone that meant “better luck next time.”Molly flashed me her told-you-so eyebrows.“Well, we wouldn’t have gotten the royal flush either.”“Not if we didn’t even try!”There was one moment of genuine excitement when we got a full house, sixes and queens. The machine clanged like crazy and quarters came pouring out. But eventually every one of them got re-deposited, never to be seen again. It wasn’t really gambling so much as just playing a video game. An enjoyable one, though. There was the dress-up aspect, the battle of wits, the allure of the hundred-dollar jackpot. Molly certainly enjoyed playing, and I enjoyed watching her.I noticed that it was almost time for the show.“Juggling?” Molly wasn’t so sure. She rattled our cup. “We still have a few quarters left.”“Yes, juggling! I’ll have you know that I minored in juggling in college. Come on. It’ll be fun.”The show was in the forward theatre again, right next to the casino. The Flying Garbanzo Brothers! Hup Hup! Four strapping guys with streaming hair and Frank Zappa mustaches, dressed in colorful gypsy blouses and billowing pantaloons. They juggled everything from tennis balls to bowling pins to pineapples to power tools.One of the brothers, Yakov, had a rakish, devil-may-care attitude and was always grinning at the ladies in the audience. In one of the acts, as balls were whizzing back and forth across the stage, he started making eyes at a blonde in the front row. He began paying less and less attention to his juggling, occasionally letting a ball fly past him, which one of the other brothers would then have to lurch out of formation to keep in play.Finally he just gave up on the juggling altogether and sat down on the edge of the stage, chatting the lady up. The other brothers were flailing frantically to keep all the balls in the air. They began to retire them, one by one, but somehow the very last ball went out of control and arched way up high toward the front of the stage. Yakov casually reached his hand out to the side and caught it without even looking.“Ladies and gentlemen!” announced Ripov, the black brother with dreads, “For our grand finale, a feat of blistering dexterity so flagrantly dangerous that it has never before been attempted within the enclosed confines of a luxury liner!” The brothers proceeded to arrange a panoply of torches and hoops and bales of combustible material all around the stage. Yakov came out sporting a mischievous grin and lugging a big red can, labeled ‘gasoline.’ Just as he was about to douse the first bale, the stagehand stormed in, a short oriental fellow in a white lab coat and thick black glasses, squawking in a barely intelligible accent and waving the ubiquitous ship safety placard, the one with the picture of the lifesaver on it.Yakov’s grin collapsed into a sneer, but he put down the can. “Still never attempted,” he muttered under his breath. The brothers juggled the torches anyway, unlit but unwieldy, back and forth through the hoops and over the bales. Suddenly red and orange crepe-paper streamers unfurled and rose up, flickering like flames and giving the impression, at least, of a roaring inferno. All in all, it was enough to get your blood pumping.When the show was over there was a bit of a traffic jam getting out of the theater. I grabbed Molly’s hand and dragged her toward a less crowded side exit. Hup hup! We found ourselves in a stateroom passageway, and I kept dragging her along at a rapid pace.“Where are we going?” she asked.“C'mon,” I replied. The fact is, I didn’t really know. At the end of the passage was a short stairway up to a bulkhead door. We went through and found ourselves outside on a little deck by the lifeboats. The sun had set, but you could still see the frothy wave caps.At the end of the deck was another stairway, and at the top was the entrance to the miniature golf. I still didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, but it wasn’t miniature golf. There was another way to go, though, even further forward, right along the edge of the bow.Molly was panting from our frantic pace, but she was keeping up. We’d reached the very front of the ship. The image of Leonardo DeCaprio holding Kate Winslet on the bow of the Titanic flashed into my mind. That’s what I wanted! Moonlight! Sea spray! Violins!But the forward view was all walled off. The only thing you could see, if you turned around, was the bridge, looming up above us, ominously dark except for the eerie glow from the radar screens. There was a stairway leading up to it, but the sign said “Authorized personnel only.”“Kind of not what I was expecting,” I said.“Oh, well,” she said. She pulled us across to the other side where another deckway led back aft. The wall there was not so high, and we stood for a while, watching the foamy caps and the unbounded emptiness. We had engine noises instead of violins and a stinging wind instead of an enchanted spray.“Do you think they’d even bother to tell us?” she wondered.“Tell us?”“If the world blew itself up.”But the wind was just too fierce. We retreated back to the more sheltered parts of the ship.This time Jack and Ciara were in the Salsa Club. They waved us in.“What are you having?” Jack yelled over the music, heading for the bar. Ciara and Molly had to half shout to hear each other. Jack came back with something tall and fruity for Molly and something short and amber colored for me.The music was catchy and persistent. Jack held out his hand and led Molly onto the dance floor. They made a handsome couple: Jack rugged and manly, Molly fresh and pretty. I felt a twinge of jealousy. Molly knew a lot of steps, and she was clearly enjoying herself. I gave Ciara an awkward smile and we walked out to join them.It turned out that Ciara was quite a dancer too. She would lose herself in the music, letting her willowy body become an instrument of its expression. I felt kind of bad that she was stuck having me as her partner, but the dance floor was crowded and she didn’t seem to mind.When the song ended, she smiled and put her hand on my arm as she caught her breath. She was attractive, with long, honey-blonde hair and a captivating smile. A bit older than me, but not that much. I tried to picture the two of us going out after we got back home.By the third song it was no longer really clear any more who was dancing with whom. Ciara and Molly were dancing next to each other and laughing together at something one of them had said. Then Ciara turned her attention to Jack, and he gave her a few of the moves that her dancing so richly deserved. They made a striking couple too, in a different way than Jack and Molly. They seemed more appropriate for each other, somehow, a better fit. And there was a genuine cozy affection between them that I could imagine outlasting the cruise.Meanwhile, Molly was dancing beside me now, her freshness and joyful enthusiasm now beamed my way. That seemed more appropriate too.Molly and I finally called it a night. It had been a long, eventful day: mermaids, cacti, sea spray, dancing. We made our way down the corridor to the little room that was beginning to feel more and more like home.I took off my coat. Molly’s hair was a bit mussed, but she looked happy, as if her day had been as full and eventful as mine had been.I brought my arms up to give her a little hug. I figured that the rules of cabin etiquette wouldn’t begrudge us one little hug. But she stepped into it, and before I knew it we were kissing, a kiss that continued as we shuffled our way toward the bed.We sat down. I put my hand on her shoulder and ran it over her sequined back. She touched my face and let her tongue brush my lips. I stroked her side and whispily brushed her breast. She drew in her breath, then reached behind herself and undid her clasp. Her bodice slipped down like a sequined snake skin, revealing the more luminous, more tender skin beneath.Her breasts were perfect, pale and shy, each one frankly punctuated by a bashful, yearning nipple. I couldn’t help but lean in and encircle one of them with my lips, tasting it gently with my own tongue. She held me softly there. The rules of cabin etiquette, it seemed, had been suspended by mutual consent.She lifted herself just enough to slip her gown off the rest of the way. She draped it over the chair and gave me the bashful version of her shrug. We had to get ready for bed after all. I undressed too, placing my clothes on top of hers. She lay down, wearing only her panties. I took off everything and lay down beside her.We glided our hands over each other’s arms, over each other’s sides, over each other’s hips. My penis was sticking out like a sore thumb, but I just let it. I caressed her firm bottom and hitched her closer so that our thighs touched, so that her nipples grazed my chest. I slipped my hand down inside her panties to be even closer to the smooth, cool touch of her skin.Always before, one part of my brain would already have been working out the logistics of getting us back where we would need to go when we were finished. But tonight those concerns were blissfully absent. We were both already right where we needed to be, right in the very bed where we would be spending the night.But there was one concern I couldn’t put aside. “I’m afraid I didn’t think to bring any protection. Do you think the gift shop might still be open?”“It’s okay,” she murmured. “I’m protected.”We kissed again. She reached down and slipped off her last remaining piece of clothing. So now we both were naked, lying together in each other’s arms, in the very bed where we were going to spend the night.It wasn’t that I didn’t know what to do next, it was just that I was a little bashful to be the one to initiate it. And, truth be told, I was more than happy just to be doing what we were doing, lying together so intimately, so completely within each other’s personal space, so fully accepting, so fully accepted. If that was going to be enough for her, it was certainly plenty enough for me.But I didn’t object when she knelt up, and straddled my thighs, and took my rigid penis in her hand, and glided her moist vagina down upon it.Neither of us said a word. Partly it was shyness, but partly it was just because there was no need to muddle up with words what our entwined bodies were already saying so well without them.To be continued.By HectorBidon for Literotica.

This just in: college is freaking expensive! But pursuing any kind of education after high school – whether a bachelor's degree, associate's, or trade certification – can make a huge difference in your career. In this special episode of “Grown-Up Stuff: How to Adult,” sponsored by EdVest of Wisconsin and the Michigan Education Savings Program, Matt and Molly speak with college savings experts Robin Lott and Jackie James about the best ways to save and pay for higher education as a parent or student. (Spoiler alert: start saving now.) If you have children – or plan on it down the road – it's never too early or too late to start saving for college.  Learn about the best student loan options, how often you can reapply for financial aid, and the many benefits to opening a 529 college savings plan.  Sources Cited:  National Center for Education Statistics “A Look at College Tuition Growth Over 20 Years” - US News & World Report Federal Student Aid Data for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) forms See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's been almost three weeks since the 55th anniversary of the Bursar's Takeover, but what can the event still tell us about the larger scope of student protest? The Daily takes a look at a variety of student protest events of the 1960s and early 1970s, tying together the common threads. Read the full article here: https://dailynorthwestern.com/2023/05/22/audio/defining-safe-the-broader-scope-of-the-bursars-takeover/

    It's been almost three weeks since the 55th anniversary of the Bursar's Office Takeover, but what can the event still tell us about the larger scope of student protest? The Daily takes a look at a variety of student protest events of the 1960s and early 1970s, tying together the common threads. PAUL... The post Defining Safe: The Broader Scope of the Bursar's Office Takeover appeared first on The Daily Northwestern.

Content warnings for this episode include: creature abuse, magical compulsion/manipulation, brief talk of bees and big spiders, and discussions of bad transphobic celebritiesAs a heads up Holly's audio is a little weird; I cleaned it up the best I know how but wanted to let folks know in case it bothers them.Yes, the moving picture business is booming in Holy Wood! Literally film stock is exploding, and how could it not with hot talent like Victor Maraschino and Dolores De Syn--those actors you definitely know who definitely didn't get fired. Meanwhile the wizards at the University find a weird vase.This week in the Disc-Course: accelerating scenery, prehistoric queers, fucked up camera, Waluigi's tax evasion, looney tune death, a movie man, whips all the way down, sequential filming, civilian gay name, new sausage, manic pixie movie girl, the ghost of Tasmania, memetic virus, huh weird, the smallest Depp, lighthouse fashion, and Grains Banged.Click here for a teddy bear beeClick here for Fuck Me, Ray BradburyClick here for an ancient earthquake detectorClick here for Terry's CRT TechnohubClick here for the Sword of Passione posterFor those playing along at home: Read up to page 176 in Moving Pictures (depending on your edition of the book), ending on the line: "The Bursar shoved the paper up the sleeve of his robe. 'Nothing important,' he said."-----You can email us at thedisccoursepod@gmail.com, follow the show @thedisccourse on twitter, or find us in the phonebook under Zlorf!Our theme music is by Maxie Satan; find her on bandcamp at Pastel Hand Grenade. She rules. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A Cape Coast High Court presided over by Justice Kwasi Boakye singled out a bank cleaner in a robbery of ¢600,000 and gave him a hefty sentence of 25 years. Michael Fosu, alias ‘Bursar' who was a cleaner working at the Ghana Commercial Bank branch at Asikuma in the Central Region, was among four persons who conspired to rob a bank customer of ¢600,000.

As we continue to read about the rising cost for students to attend college, now is a good time to also discuss the various costs of operating a college. In this episode, Dr. P. talks with Liz LaPolt Clark about how money flows on a campus. The conversation covers specific sources of revenue, interesting types of expenses, and the many offices that are responsible for making sure a college's financial resources are managed well.Liz is Vice President for Policy and Research at the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), a membership organization representing more than 1,700 colleges and universities across the country. Liz is a member of the NACUBO executive leadership group and heads the team responsible for analysis of federal regulatory and legislative actions, research, and communications at NACUBO. She has been widely quoted in the press and is a sought-after speaker on how Washington politics and federal policies impact higher education. Liz got her start on Capitol Hill in 1999, running Cornell University's first Washington, DC-based federal relations office, and in her career has led federal affairs for the State University of New York (SUNY) System and for Oregon State University. A native of Liberty, NY, Liz is a graduate of Binghamton University (SUNY) and received a Master's degree from Cornell University. She currently lives in Fort Washington, Maryland.During the break, Dr. P. describes her new book. The Ask Dr. P. segment features a question about how to make new friends.Liz Clark on TwitterLiz Clark on LinkedInLiz's BioResources Mentioned in This EpisodeDr. P.'s new book, You Are a Data Person: Strategies for Using Analytics on CampusGot a question about college? Email Dr. P. at amelia@speakingofcollege.com  

*please note* Posting of the previous week's episodes on YouTube will begin on Saturday the 12th (NOT the 5th as stated in this episode). The week's new Pratchips episodes will be available for all supporters of the show starting this Sunday as scheduled. This week I am happy to bring you some news and rumors I heard in the Mended Drum, including the story about what happened when the Bursar tried Extreme Sneezing. Fortunately, there were no fatalities. The deadline for the Portal Poetry Contest has been extended to Sunday, September 20th.The Re-name The Portal contest has been closed. I have settled on a new name for the show. We have a new email address: medievalgnome@gmail.com. I'm working on transitioning all our MGP (Medieval Gnome Productions) related email there. Send us an email at the new addy—you never know what might happen!  And, PLEASE send me some new questions for Granny! You can ask her anything.Some places to visit:Our new website: https://www.podpage.com/witches-and-wizards-portal. Our Discord community, “Friends of Medieval Gnome Productions.” https://discord.gg/kdr5SWnUPP. Btw, it costs nothing to join the server, and there's a lot of exclusive content on there.Our Patreon page if you're in the mood to underwrite the efforts of Medieval Gnome Productions (or just want to see some more exclusive content). There's also patron-only content there. Here's the URL. https://www.patreon.com/user?u=21210045&fan_landing=trueGNU Terry Pratchett The Turtle MovesMind How You Go

Jonathan interviews Diane Roberson and Henry Showalter about the Office of University Scholarships and Financial Aid and the Bursar's Office.

Leyla Tovey from School Business Services joins me to talk about National School Business Leaders Day, the challenges that SBLs have faced over the last year, why the SBL profession and community is so unique and why it is important to think big! Also… keep listening until the end for a little surprise from me to celebrate National School Business Leaders Day! The episode at a glance: [1:50] – Leyla explains where the idea of National School Business Leaders Day (11th June 2021) came from and why it is important that SBLs are recognised for the amazing work that they do [6:38] – Leyla talks about some eye-opening experiences from her long-term Bursar cover roles… [13:16] – Leyla tells us about #SBLKudos and how school leaders (and fellow SBLs) can give SBLs a shout out both in the run up to and beyond National School Business Leaders Day [16:11] – We talk about the power of the SBL community, the frustrations we face and the power of recognition  [19:34] – We talk about how by sharing a voice we can raise the profile and awareness of our amazing profession [25:19] – Leyla gives you the full low-down on what's happening, how to register and how to get involved in National School Business Leaders Day [29:50] – Find out the details of my National School Business Leaders Day surprise!  Related content: - https://www.schoolbusinessservices.co.uk/national-sbl-day (Register! National School Business Leaders Day) - https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/CPXSDK6 (Win a Free 2 Hour Coaching Session with me! TIME LIMITED) Details: Closing date Weds 9th June at 6:00pm. The winner will be selected by me and announced at the official National School Business Leader Day event on Friday 11th June 2021. - https://twitter.com/leylatov (Follow Leyla on Twitter) - https://twitter.com/SBS_Updates (Follow SBS on Twitter) Want to be a guest on the podcast? https://form.jotform.com/211131795465355 (Click here to leave me your details and I'll be in touch soon!) Subscribe: ·      If you haven't already, make sure you hit subscribe in your podcast player so you don't miss out on future episodes!  ·      https://school-business-leadership.captivate.fm/listen (Or click here if it's easier!) Get in touch: You know I love to hear from you so please pop me an email or get in touch on social media to let me know what you think of the show and what you'd like to see in the future! You can find Laura here… -       https://www.ljbusinessofeducation.co.uk/ (Website, Blog & Free Resources) -       https://twitter.com/lauraljbusiness/ (Twitter) -       https://www.instagram.com/lauraljbusiness/ (Instagram) -       https://www.facebook.com/lauraljbusiness/ (Facebook) -       https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauraljbusiness/ (LinkedIn)

Doug Shaw is Bursar at St. Peter's College, Oxford, a position he has held for over two years. I got to know him when he was in a COO role within one of Europe's most successful hedge funds, The Children's Investment Fund, and in his investment career he has held a series of fascinating roles, both at start up firms and in large firms such as Gartmore and Blackrock. He has spent time in derivatives sales, building a business for charity clients, and in managing hyper-fast growth, and now holds various NED and Investment Committee positions in addition to his Bursar role.Our conversation starts with Doug's first trip to Oxford, what he thought he knew when he emerged, and what it turns out he actually did. In his early investment roles he worked with some disruptors, particularly in the hedge fund arena and built businesses run by strong personalities and serving weighty clients. We speak about what he learned from these experiences and the efforts he is making now, in an area (third level learning) that has been upended like never before. He is passionate about making the investment industry more accessible across the socio-economic spectrum and invites students of his Oxford college to observe the investment process as it relates to the endowment. At every stage of Doug's career he has brought tremendous energy to his tasks in hand - our discussion of his efforts in terms of diversifying access to investment shows that energy alone may not be enough. This podcast was made possible by the kind support of Alvine Capital, a specialist advisor and placement boutique, based in London.

Episode Notes Oh, it's one of Those episodes. https://immortal-incantations.pinecast.co https://kvothekiller-chronicles.pinecast.co Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/whowatchesthewatch Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/rZzbbQp Other Shows: https://goodepisodeproductions.carrd.co/#shows Support Who Watches the Watch: A Discworld Podcast by donating to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/who-watches-the-watch This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Welcome to a New Semester! We have some exciting news and changes going on at JCCC this semester we'll be talking about this week. Make sure to take Camille's advice and rent out those books, your photo gallery will thank you later! Let's Go Cavs! (Update: Coffeeshop in Library closed for Spring 2021 semester.) Resources mentioned: Student Success Center: https://www.jccc.edu/admissions/success-center/ Bursar's Office: https://www.jccc.edu/about/leadership-governance/administration/bursar.html Bookstore: https://www.jccc.edu/campus-life/bookstore.html Student Basic Needs: https://www.jccc.edu/student-resources/basic-needs-center/ Student Resources: https://www.jccc.edu/student-resources/ Admissions: https://www.jccc.edu/admissions/apply/ Financial Aid: https://www.jccc.edu/admissions/financial-aid/ Academic Advising & Counseling: https://www.jccc.edu/student-resources/academic-counseling/ Resource Centers: https://www.jccc.edu/experiences/2020/online-student-resources.html Math Resource Center: https://www.jccc.edu/student-resources/academic-resource-center/math-resource-center/ Academic Achievement Center: https://www.jccc.edu/student-resources/academic-resource-center/academic-achievement-center/ Science Resource Center: https://www.jccc.edu/student-resources/academic-resource-center/science-resource-center/ Writing Center: https://www.jccc.edu/student-resources/academic-resource-center/writing-center/ Language Resource Center: https://www.jccc.edu/student-resources/academic-resource-center/language-resource-center/ Billington Library: https://library.jccc.edu/home/ Get Involved: https://jccc.campuslabs.com/engage/ Welcome Week: https://jccc.campuslabs.com/engage/event/6649413 Kahoot: https://jccc.campuslabs.com/engage/event/6644314 Clubs & Orgs. Involvement Fair: https://jccc.campuslabs.com/engage/event/6646603 Mario Kart Challenge: https://jccc.campuslabs.com/engage/event/6665483 JCCC Student Senate: https://jccc.campuslabs.com/engage/event/6633104 Cavalier Leadership Program: https://jccc.campuslabs.com/engage/organization/cldp

On today's show: Meghan and Jessica discuss the start of the NBA season, the struggling Memphis tigers and Pittsburgh Steelers, the Bursar's Office and more. (start)NBA Season Opener (10:00) Daily Grind (17:00) Off the Grind (51:00) POP Watch LIVE at 8am, Weekdays on the Grizzlies App: bit.ly/MemGrizzApp Watch today's full show at: youtube.com/grindcitymedia

Ian offers wonderfully rich prompts and all the pieces must be performed live and they must not exceed 5 minutes. It’s quite amazing how this crystalizes all the bullshit thoughts that normally takes up meters of paper and forces you to get to the point right quick because the clock is literally ticking. Not to mention all the trees we’re saving. The prompt for today’s piece was to tell the story of the most frustrating/maddening time you dealt with a bureaucracy (DMV, Bursar's office, traffic court, etc).  Please go to isitrecessyet.com for the print version of this essay. Enjoy! 

Season 3 was supposed to be ten episodes, but I ended up doing two bonus episodes for all listeners, making the season 12 episodes long. Get the idea I love to do this show? I do. This past week I did ponder Ridcully a lot. Yes, a pune or play on words. Spontaneous, too. Ponder Stibbons ponders Mustrum Ridcully. Mustrum Ridcully frustrates Ponder Stibbons. Stibbons tries to explain things to Ridcully, and Ridcully is either willfully obtuse or finds no value in what Ponder has to say. Actually it's often a combination of those two things.  This week we also consider the Archchancellor's relationship with his faculty apart from Ponder Stibbons; especially, his relationship with the Bursar (lots of shouting) and with the Librarian (not so much shouting at all.) Remember to come join the other Friends of the Discworld Portal on our Discord server (https://discord.gg/YBD2rzK). There is now also a Discord server called Portal Feedback which is for, well, for feedback about the show. https://discord.gg/snVHpxMRemember you can always reach me at randy@mindkindle.net. Come visit the show's Patreon page as well, at https://www.patreon.com/user?u=21210045.This week's lottery question: Who's your favorite Discworld villain? 

Basically I talk about the sick & twisted ponzi-scheme that is higher education in America, I share a song produced by Glashaus, and talk about cordial terrorism. Bon Appétit!

It's all about character this week, as I introduce four of the most memorable characters in the Discworld. Three of them, Mustrum Ridcully, the Bursar, and the Librarian are on the faculty of Unseen University in Ankh-Morpork, and the fourth is Sam Vimes, member of the city watch and probably the most richly-developed of all Terry Pratchett's characters.  You also get to hear a bit about Holly and Ivy, as well as how the name of the show and the on-air name of its host came to be. 

Do you still have the exact group of friends you grew up with? Well get ready to meet the SQ901 comprised of childhood friends who are now in business together. Their social brand is deeply rooted in friendship while providing positive vibes and diversity. Known for their signature Silent Party Events, the SQ901 breaks down why party goers are drawn to this unique atmosphere. As these gentlemen plan for 2019, I find out the other side to their stories. For example, by day you can find Bucci Bucci handling business as a project manager in his family’s general contracting business and Bryant in his role as the Bursar at the Memphis Institute of Barbering. And let’s not forget about the many excursions they take to Miami which is definitely one of the highlights of the pod. Although very entertaining, I can definitely witness the importance of male friendships which they speak on in great detail. We even dive deep into some well-known bromances with a game called “Bros You Know.” Take a listen to episode 47 with social experts SQ901 and discover how their squad was formed and how it is still thriving.

What's going on everybody? Hey, this is Coulton woods and I want to welcome you to another episode of learning from the experts, and once again, I have a freaking awesome expert on here today that I'm excited for you guys to get to know and your story and learn some freaking sick stuff from. So here's the deal. I know how frustrating it is as an entrepreneur to waste countless hours sifting through wanna be experts who never actually helped me in the end. Then to learn years later that there was an expert who really could help me 100 times faster than learning on my own. I have created this podcast to save you time and money while taking you on a journey with me as I learn from and interview real experts who can actually help you grow your business. My name is Coulton Woods and you're listening to learning from the experts. Awesome Josh! I'm excited to have you on here. I have Josh Forti on here with me today and he's going to drop some knowledge bombs, some truth nukes. Steve Larsen would like to say, but first off, okay, Josh, not everybody knows you, so let's, let's hear your story a little bit more. Coulton, the man, I appreciate you having me on here dude. It's an honor and I'm excited to get rockin' and rollin'. How far back should we go? Where do you wanna start? How'd you get started? We'll back up to the origin story. Born in Wisconsin at age one, moved to La, lived in the suburbs of La for 10 years and then moved out to this little itty bitty farm town in the middle of nowhere of Indiana. So culture shock, right? I'm 12 years old from there, grew up on a farm and had no social media experience and all, like I had dial up internet. I didn't have like texting or Internet on my phone until I was 20, so I mean, like really out in the middle of nowhere. And so I went and, you know, I'm a farmer and had a bad year in the farm community. I was planning on being a farmer my whole life. That was my goal, my mentality and had a bad year in that. It was like, dude, I gotta go do something else. Like I didn't realize the risk that was involved there. So I wanted something a little more. Started college for a semester. Absolutely hated it. While in college I got a job in insurance sales and kind of the requirement, the reason I was able to get that job was, hey, you're in college, you're going to finish it. Well, I was arguing with my professor one day and he was like, you're here because you want to be successful. And I'm like, oh no, that's not why I'm here. You don't need college to be successful.  And he goes, was, why the heck are you here? And I'm like, well, that's a good point. And so literally right there I got up, stood up and said I quit and walked out and walked out of the Bursar's office, quit my classes and left. And so when my boss finds out like three or four days later, she's like, you've got three months to figure out what you're going to do.  And either start something else, right? Sign up for more classes or figure out what you're going to do with your life basically or else you're done. And so I'm like, all right, well I'm gonna figure something out. So I'm pretty broke at this time and I'm looking around and I'm like how do I make money? And so we're sitting there, she's got some pretty big clients and we're at this sitting in the office of a huge company. I mean probably over $100, $200,000,000 a year at least. I mean, they got factories all over the world, right? And so he's like, sales are down and, and stuff, even though the demand for our stuff is at an all time high. And I'm like why is that the case then? He's like all the sales are coming in online and they weren't there, they weren't in that online space. This is like two years ago. And I'm like, we'll have you like tried like running ads or like being online or being on social media. And he's like, no, I can't remember exactly what he said, but it's something along the lines of like, that doesn't work or influencers, something is a fad or something like that. And I'm like, alright, well I'm broke and you're telling me that people are making money online. Right? So I go home and I just started googling it and I'm like how do I make money? How do I make money? How to make money? And long story short...  how old are you at this point? 20, 21, 22, so probably 22. I'm trying to think. Maybe this was right before my 22nd birthday I think maybe. And so I'm like googling and I'm like how do I do this? And so driving for Uber comes up and I'm like okay, that's not online but okay I get it. Flips and stuff on Ebay and craigslist and stuff. I'm like all right. And so I started doing that and just like looking around and I find facebook ads and I find a ecom and I'm like watch this. I'm sure there's a Webinar of some sort and they're like if you could just do this and this. And I'm like yeah. So I like jump in and I've spent... I just had to put it on a credit card because I didn't have any money and I spent like 800 bucks on a set of a website and econ website had someone to do it because I had no idea and like five or $600 on facebook ads. And I didn't make any sales, I tried to sell Harry Potter books because that was the only thing. I was like my friends all like Harry Potter. So maybe they'll buy it. That's awesome dude. I know. So I'm like broken out at this point and now I'm in debt and I've never been in debt before my whole life at this point. And so I'm like freaking out. And so I'm still trying to pay this off by flipping stuff on craigslist because I was driving for Uber. Then one day I meet this kid on instagram, he was like 16 years old, he's got 50,000 followers and I'm like, is this guy famous? Right. So I go and I literally googled his name and I'm like trying to figure out if he's got rich parents or if it's famous. I can't find him anywhere. And so I just messaged him and I had three questions for him. I was like, number one- are you famous somewhere else? Number two, are you making money? And number three, if so, how? He messages me back and I can't for the life of me remember who it was and I wish I would have written it down, but at the time I wasn't in entrepreneurship so I didn't know that that's what you did, right? I remember him telling me, he's like, I post cool stories about stuff that I do. People tell me what they want me to sell them. I go and I sell it to them and they buy it and I'm like, there is no way it's that easy. Right? Like how? And so I'm like thinking about this and think about this. And then I had this light bulb moment and so I messaged him back because I knew I probably only get like one more question before he ignore me. And then I'm an annoying instagrammer and I was like, Dude, you pay for ads? And he's like, no dude, they just tell me what they want. And I'm like, light bulb moment! This is amazing, right? I'm like, you don't have to have, like how do you grow without paying brands? You're not paying for your followers, they're all real. And so that was like a big light bulb moment for me because I'm broke at the time and you know many, I don't know where you, the listener are right now if you're, you know, are broke or maybe just started out. But like the thought for me and a lot of people that I run into is like the thought that me and a lot of people run into like, the thought of running ads is scary. Right? And it's like I don't know if I'm going to get an Roi on that money. And so I was like, if I can grow an audience and figure out how to grow an audience without having to pay for ads, that's game over for me, like I'm all in. And so I started looking around, looking around and I ended up buying a course. Once again, didn't have the money for it, only had like half of it, but I put it on a credit card and I was like, all right, I'm all in. And there was an instagram course and I don't want to bash on the course. It was, it was a good course, I think it was thorough in what it taught, but it wasn't anything like exceptional. I think a lot of people think that if it was not an exceptional or amazing course or whatever, it's not worth their money. The thought that like you have to have like this big drawn out course that needed to be super awesome in order to get results. That's not true. Like this course was average, mediocre, but it was thorough. And so I just did everything the course said. So I bought it on a Friday and I was like, all right, I'm going to do this from Friday when I get off work til like Monday when I go back, I'm gonna go through this whole course. That's exactly what I did. And so I started doing literally everything that the course said and I want to say, and this is kind of more like on the mindset issue side of things. My parents always taught me how to work hard and like my parents were not like, I don't have money and I don't come from a wealthy family or whatever, and not money savvy, but if you grew up on a farm, you know how to work hard. Right? And so I was like, I'm not gonna quit and I'm going to find new ways to make this better and I'm going to get my money back out of this because I've got to make my money back. And so I did everything that it said. And then some. And I tested different things and I opened several different accounts and I tried it. I tried it and it took me months to actually see results out of it. But fast forward seven months, seven months later, and I had 80- 100,000 followers on instagram just off of just doing it consistently. And for the first two or three or four months, so many people give up and I'm like, dude, I spent all my money and went and did that over this. And I didn't see any results for three months. But I followed through and I finally figured out how it clicked and so that's kind of what started me into this whole social media game was instagram and some 16 year old kid who said I don't pay for ads and I make money and that's what's lead into now, and I'm sure we'll get into that, but about 5 million followers that we've grown for myself, for clients on social media, between instagram and facebook. That's actually actually super impressive. One thing that I've kind noticed too is you say you came from a farming background, first off, that's freaking sweet because you weren't just given a phone when you were 12. So you've only been in this game for what, 4 years now? No, not even- three years. Three years. Yeah. So probably about three years ago is when I started googling this whole thing. And then I remember, October, November- that's what I want to quit classes would have been been around this time. And then I started on instagram March 1st or March second, two years ago. So it'll be coming up on three years this coming March is when I started on instagram. That's incredible dude. But I think the key to that is you didn't stop. Like most people, they don't see the Roi in like three, four, five, six months and they're like, this is not happening. I'm done right when they're at the edge of just hitting the gold mine, you know? And so I think that's a huge lesson for us to learn as well- you just got to keep pushing through it and then it will happen. If I could just stop you right there- just because a week or a month or a year has gone by means literally nothing if you're not actually working because like I have people that bought into the same course and they're like, well, I've been trying for six months and I'm only at 6,000 followers. How are you at 80,000? And I'm like, because I worked a job where I worked nine hours a day. I had a 30 minute commute each way, roughly 20 to 30 minutes. Right. So I'm like, there's 10 hours of my day that's gone. I had to be there at 8:00 AM. So I would wake up an hour and a half before I had to leave and for an hour I would work on instagram. My entire lunch break was instagram my entire time after that. And I had a girlfriend at the time. I wasn't married but it was constant. It was always, I didn't go to movies, I didn't go hang out with friends, I didn't go to parties, I didn't go to events. I went to church, I went to work, I went to Walmart and that's it. And when you do that people are like, well, you know, I have this. I'm like, dude, two years, two, three years of your life, you sacrifice for a lifetime of whatever that is. And I know Russell talks about that a lot too, so. Yeah, it's totally true. I've even talked about like when I served my repair business on the podcast and I've told you a little bit about it, but I started out and it was just a little here, a little there, not much. And then a year later I literally have a brick and mortar and I'm just busier than I could be, but I stuck with it, you know, like I just kept it going, pushed it out more and more. So. And then the other thing I want to point out is I feel like I've noticed this trend- I don't know if it's the farm thing or what, but a lot of killers out there I feel like they grew up and their parents just made them work so they've learned how to work. But with that being said, my dad had me outside working. I learned how to work outside, but not only that I learned how to enjoy my work even though most people hated it. I'm sure you learned the same thing. Like farming. It sucks when you're a kid. Right? Nothing like bailing hay, dude. 100 degrees outside the heat is blaring down on you. And then after you're dog tired, you got to go into the Hayloft and you've got to put it all into the barn and it's hot. There's no air you can't breathe. It is the worst. Yeah, no, absolutely. See, yeah, you learned some hard work, but that I feel like for me it didn't translate too much into like the online work. I had a really hard time with that at the beginning. Interesting. Then I went to college and I feel like that actually opened up my eyes that I could actually accomplish more things than I realized. And I'm sure you probably realized that even with like the one semester that you went to, like, Hey, I can actually do all this stuff. The biggest thing that I learned from college or that I was made aware of is that there's actually monetary value in the information that's in your head. But afterwards I would go and I look back at that and I understand now that there is monetary value in this stuff and I learned that through business. But I will say that there are certain elements of the college experience. I went to a community college. There was definitely valuable in that mental transition process for sure. That's interesting. That's cool stuff, dude. Well, Hey, I want to ask you some more questions here. We know that you were not just given this, it wasn't just a silver platter. Here you go. What are some of the hard things that you went through? What are some of the things that people go through as they become someone like you or they build their business like you did? So first off, the first little roadblock that everybody runs into, I think, I feel like less people run into it now just because more people are in the online space and people that are serious in this kind of like get into it. But if you're a complete Newbie, like I was, have no online friends, for sure you're going to run into this is nobody watches you at the beginning, right? Like no one. And I did a webinar yesterday. I actually showed a screenshot, like my first I used to try to publish on Youtube right when I first got started, like I had no money, so I was like literally taking the lamp shades off of lights and setting them on either side to try to get better. I got four views. The first facebook group I ever launched in the first month got three members, right? Like nobody cares. And so I think that at the beginning was really difficult. Thankfully I just liked to talk and so I'm like, well, if nobody listens to me, Dang it, I will listen to me, you know what I mean? Put my voice out there. So I think that was really, really difficult for me. And I think it's difficult for a lot because when you see that the person you're following is getting a thousand views and you're getting 62, that's a really big mental block. And so I think that was more of like an overall difficult thing. And then once I got into it, dude, I'll tell you the worst day of my life, I'm telling you the worst day and I've been through some crap in my life. But something I would not ever want to go back to December, I think it was 29th, 2016, so this is coming up on two years ago, not too long ago, my first webinar ever and we hired a guy, paid him the package, was $25,000 and I didn't have the $25,000 at the time. So we took out a payment plan on it and put down 15,000 up front, it's all the money I had. I think I had like my business partner and I combined. Mind you, we're both paying for an apartment. I don't have a job at this point. I think combined we had like $2,000 and I make it count. We put down every penny on this guy to help us build our webinar. And we were convinced that we had a good course. It was on instagram. We had grown probably over a million, 2 million followers probably at this time. So like we knew what we were doing and we told him, we're like, we're going to get a ton of people registered for this Webinar. And he didn't believe us. And I was like, no dude, you don't understand. Like we have a lot of followers on instagram, like we will push traffic. And so we went through and we worked as hard as we knew how. I talk about learning how to learn. Like I didn't know how to learn at this point. I didn't know how to receive that level of information, but I was giving it my all and this guy should've told us up front that we were not the right fit, that he didn't want our money. Like he should've said no. It was clearly obvious that we were not a good fit. But we went through and so we built this webinar, 2,700 people registered, zero ads spent. So this was a warm audience from Instagram. So it's not truly warm, but it's a warm audience. 1000 people showed up for the Webinar. Actually thousand and four. We maxed out the room and people couldn't get in. One sale. One sale? Hundreds of emails of- F you! Go to hell. You're never going to be successful. You're a scam artist. This was the worst webinar ever. Can I get an hour of my life back? You should pay me to do it. I'm talking the lowest of lows, like I would pay $100,000 to not have to go back to that day, right? It was that bad. And so I'm like going through this process, I bawled my self to sleep that night because we worked so hard and I was like, I owe $15,000 to this guy now, right? I put down $15 and 15 that was supposed to come from this webinar. I only made one sale and everybody hates me. And so at that point when you're in that moment, that's a defining moment for people's lives. And so when people are like, Josh, you know, it's easy for you to do blah, blah, blah. I'm like, no, no, no, no. That's a misconception that it's easier when you have an audience and I don't want to scare anybody away from trying to build an audience. It's the most amazing thing ever. The amount of lives you can change, but everything you do is in the spotlight when you're in the audience and especially in business. The next day I wrote up. Wrote a very long email and I did a live stream apologizing to everyone there and I said, look guys, I'm really, really good at social media and I know what I'm talking about. Clearly I don't know what the heck I'm doing on webinars and I'm sorry. Right. And so we offered a followup training with no pitch for free, just sat on there for an hour. We just broke down on strategy and we turned that into a good scenario in the sense of we gained a lot of respect from the people that actually followed us, but everybody else hated us. I mean really truly hated me at that given point. And so when I see people like Logan Paul and his controversy was like millions, I can't imagine what that guy's going through. So that was the worst day of my life up until that point and still to this day, like in business, just awful. And so that was a mental game right there. Big Time. That is huge. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think that's just something that people actually need to see and hear because it's so true. Yeah, it's not easy, but as long as you just keep going and you push through. There was guy named Hyrum Smith who I listen to from Franklin Covey. He said pain is inevitable. Misery is optional. Yup. I totally agree. You could have just taken that day and blamed that guy for the rest of your life and never done anything else and just ended up getting a nine to five and not grown an audience after that because you feel like you failed or you push through it just like you did and you made it happen. That's awesome dude. And I think the other thing with failure in that lesson specifically, and I love what you said there about blaming that guy because that's your initial reaction. Believe me, like the first thing that I did the next morning, because I got on Voxer with that guy and I said, here's what happened. We got issues, right? Not blaming that person and turning that into a learning experience- a lot of good, but mentally it has messed me up for future webinars and stuff. It really did. Even I did a Webinar just yesterday, dude, like you hit that Go Live button and you are in terror. Right? And you're freaking out and then when you can hit done, you're in terror because you're like, is my inbox about to explode my, about to make no money. You know what I mean? That happened, right? But you learned from that experience and you have to go through and let that experience go and not hold a grudge to that person and really learn from it and truly become that person. And if you only look at it from a financial standpoint and you only look at it from a business standpoint, you're going to have a really hard time with it. Look at it from a life standpoint. When you look at it from a wow, look what I learned from a non financial standpoint, it makes it a lot easier. And like you said, you don't have to be in misery over it. I've been through a couple of situations I can think of. One that was just, I couldn't really hold a grudge against that person for doing what they did and pretty much screwed me over on my entire business. But I look at it now and I'm like, man, I learned a ton from that and I'm glad I actually went through it then instead of later on. So yeah, totally. Just learn from those experiences. Let's get into social media. All right. Tell us some stuff. We want some gold here, some truth. You have to understand from a pure growth standpoint on social media, there are literally only two things that matter and I know people are like, what are the three secrets? You're probably looking for me to drop some hacks and we can get into that. I'm happy to do that, but excuse me, if you listened to Russell Brunson about funnels, he talks about the different elements of what makes a successful funnel on social media regardless of the platform, regardless of the message, whatever. There's only two things that matter and that number one is the story and how you deliver that story, like the content piece of it. Number two is exposure, right? Those are the two things you're going for. And so what you have to look at from a core element is if you don't know what your message is slash what your story is, then you can't get exposure on that story, right? And so the Hashtags, you use a facebook ad, you run the interviews that you do, all that is getting the exposure to your message. And so once you have that, I suppose we've gotten people that have had told the message, they'll get thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of views on their instagram profile or their facebook page or whatever and nobody will follow. And then you've gotten people that have gotten like 10,000 views on their facebook page or instagram page and like half of those people turn into followers. What's the difference? The difference is your content and your storyline behind it. You've got to give people a reason to follow you. And the only reason that makes you different or unique than anyone else is your story. And so when you have that story, and I work with personal brands. People that want to grow an audience. If you're not doing a personal brand, then there's a storyline behind whatever it is that you are trying to grow. Look at Nike. Look at Maverick by Logan Paul, look at these big huge econ stores, the ones that make it are the ones that have a storyline and the ones that really build that brand around it. So I would say those two things are the things that you need to focus on and everything that you teach and everything that you learn. It only applies back to one of those. You're either getting more exposure and I'm talking purely from a growth standpoint, not a monetization sample, but like from a growth standpoint, it either ties back to your message and story or it ties back to the amount of exposure that you're going to get. One of those two. And what do you think would happen if you kind of went off from your story into a different area? Like what if you broke from what you normally teach what you do? I just had the thought come into my head that if someone's got this story or this following and this is kind of like what they're teaching and this is what they're in,Russell Brunson in funnels, and he were to go somewhere else, like what would that do, do you know? So I would say one or two things. If you're breaking, if you're moving into something else and it's part of your storyline, then you're fine. Right? But what if you're not focused on that one, I guess? Right? Exactly. Why do you follow someone? Right? You follow someone because number one, you follow a story because you want to know what happens next, right? But you follow a specific story because of how you relate to that story. And so if this story is all over the place, are you really gonna follow it? Think about if I'm telling you a story and I'm like, dude, let me tell you this. One time I was at the beach and all the sudden we were eating ice cream and oh dude, when I was over here on this grass. You'd be like, wait, what happened? What happened to the beach? Right. I'll get back to that here in just a second, but dude, this grass. I was mowing this grass. You'd be like what are you doing? You know? And so if you're straying all over the place and you're hopping from this to this, this is really hard for people to know what it is that you're about and the story that they're trying to follow. So if you're straying from that, if you're straying from whatever it is and you're jumping from thing to thing, I try not to and people think they have to have it all figured out right away, you know? Right? If you're authentic and you're real and you put forth your passion and your why is why you always lead with why, then you can have different elements of the story and like your core audience will know that you're trying different things, but you've got to have that core message in that core story along what you're doing. And so for me right now, and I was sharing this with you before the podcast, there was a point not too long ago, six, seven, eight months ago when I was about to just dip out, I was done. And the reason you don't always share that, but the people that you do share that with, they go, okay, well they understand the process because they know your big vision. And so when you're like, Hey, I'm leading with this vision of I want to make the world a better place by providing people with information that's going to change their life. I'm all about education. And so for me right now, the vehicle, I'm using social media, that's what people know me by, but my core audience knows that my vision is to make the world a better place and change the world through education. That's what I've told my audience. And so every live stream that I'm signing off on is, go out, think different, make the world a better place. You know, James Lives. And so if I were to jump from social media and let's say make a shift to PR or make a shift to funnels or whatever that is, and that was my focus, my core audience that's actually going to follow and buy from me, as long as I tell them that storyline process, they're going to know, okay, he's shifting vehicles but he's still on the same route. But if you just jumped and you don't give them context, if you just jump and you don't share that story and you don't lead with that overall vision of what you're doing, then it's impossible for them to know what's going on and they're not going to fall. Yeah, totally. I think that helps a ton just to know kind of what the focus is on. A confused mind will not follow because they don't understand it. If it doesn't make sense to them or they don't get that emotionally attached to it, then they're not going to care. Think of it this way, right? Imagine you were following an instagram account. Instagram account was all about sunsets. You love sunsets, you love the beach. And I follow one. I think it's actually called that sunsets and it's beautiful pictures. You're following it for that reason, right? If all of sudden they went and deleted all that content one day and started posting pictures of themselves, are you going to continue to follow? No, of course not. And I actually had this example, I did that and I was building an instagram account. We had, I don't know, probably 100,000 followers or so. And it was a luxury account, like houses, beautiful cars and things of that nature. And I was like, dude, I want to be famous, right? Because at this point I hadn't really grown my personal brand. I was like, what if I just post some pictures of me up there? So like every now and then I would just throw up a picture and first off the engagement drops, like 90 percent, right? Like nobody likes it, engages on it. And then the random people that do, there'll be like Who the heck is it? Who are you? Like, why is this on my newsfeed? You know? And they'll literally just comment on it. They don't want it. It's not what they signed up for. And so people, you have to remember that the thing that you use to attract people is oftentimes the thing that they're going to remember you for and follow you for. And so that's why there's nothing inherently wrong about driving a Lamborghini or going off and having a ton of money sitting in your passenger seat for some reason, right? But if that's the message that you're putting off and that's what people are following you for, then that's the type of person you're going to attract. So as soon as you switch that up and you don't have that anymore, they're not going to follow you. Right. So like imagine if Tai Lopez stopped posting pictures of cars and girls and you know, things like that, like one of his core audience that, whose life he's changed continue to follow him. Yes. But with the mass majority of people that follow him, would you still be Tai Lopez? Like you wouldn't because that's what they follow him for, you know. So it's really important to just understand what are you using to attract people and is that really your core message? Which is why you'll, I mean, you might see me in a Lamborghini, but you're never gonna see me using Lamborghinis to attract millions of followers. That's not my style. Yeah, totally. No mine either, right? Because I don't think lamborghinis changed the world. They're awesome, but they're not going to go make the world a better place. Exactly. Right? You can have a good time and I'm all about having fun and a good time while you're working hard for sure. Is there any last one golden nugget that you want to drop? Let me drop a few golden go bombs here. Do you want to focus more on instagram or folks who are on facebook or general? Which one do you think is the better one at this time right now to be focusing on or both? Instagram, depending upon how your audience uses it. Right? Instagram drives a lot of traffic or can drive a lot of traffic. There's less buyers on the instagram platform now. I'll get to that in just a second. It's much easier to grow on instagram and you need to cultivate and nurture your audience a lot on instagram. It's hard to do that in an automated way. So instagram is a very time consuming platform, but it can be a very profitable time, which is one of the biggest problems. And actually the reason that I just got out of the instagramming, is because a lot of my clients, especially these bigger names, like they expected an automated solution because that was what they're used to, you can do that on facebook because you can place ads and do that content. You can't do that on Instagram, right? It's much more difficult. So from a standpoint of monetization, if you want to drive a ton of traffic and you don't want to have a personal brand and you don't want to spend a whole lot of time on it, great. You can go to Instagram, you can post some viral photos of entrepreneurship and grass and that's great. If you want to actually cultivate an audience, if you want to be on instagram platform, you're going to need time. Time is what goes into it. Now. That's evolving. Now on facebook. On the other hand, buyers on facebook, the same person, and this was back early 2017. So it's probably different. Instagram's got a really huge shift in 2018. But at one point the same exact person on instagram and on facebook was eight times more likely to buy on facebook. Then it was on instagram. So they see an ad for the same thing on the two platforms, they are eight times more likely to buy on facebook. So now you go, okay, well why the heck then would I even spend any of my time on instagram and it's because traffic on instagram is like 10 times cheaper than it is on facebook. So for those of you that are in the paid advertising space or are in the space of marketing, what we will do is we will acquire the initial customer or the initial follower I should say on instagram and then we will drive them to facebook as fast as we possibly can. So let's say you didn't want to grow an instagram page yourself, but you wanted to capitalize on traffic because it's cheap, right? So I'll set up a page and my only goal on that page is to get people to either opt in or really just hit the page. And here's why, I ideally would like them to opt in to our freebies, but I never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever pay for an ad on instagram where I'm selling something. I'm always giving it away for free from shout outs from other influencers unless I'm going to do a super longterm deal with them. But if it's like I'm buying 10 jobs from them, I'm sending them to a Freebie offer, I'm putting a facebook pixel on that page and that facebook pixel is specific for that instagram audience. I'm going to go buy $3,000 in shout outs from an instagram influencer. I'm going to get literally tens of thousands of visitors to visit that page because they're doing swipe up. Like we were getting clicks for. I think we were getting Webinar registrations at one point for eighty three cents. We paid a thousand bucks and we got two or 3000 impressions to the page that we did the shout out from but now that facebook pixel has fired thousands of times, so you've got a lot of good data and as long as the quality of the account that you're buying them from has good quality followers, we typically buy story shout outs rather than post shout outs, photos with the swipe up. People are actually watching and engaged. Now I have an audience facebook pixel to go retarget on facebook and I can create lookalike audiences off of that. So I have a wired my 5,000 impressions for pennies on the dollar compared to what I would have paid for an initial 5,000 impressions on facebook and now I can just go retarget on there. And so from a paid advertising standpoint, that's a great strategy. From an organic, it is easier to grow fast on instagram. It is easier to grow loyal on facebook. That got interesting fast, more loyal on facebook and just the following mainly on instagram. That's really interesting because I'm guessing, correct me if I'm wrong, your audience probably don't want to be like celebrity influencers and majority of them, yeah, I'd say probably a majority of them there, they're just looking to kind of grow probably. Yeah. Mainly just kind of grow a little bit of their, uh, let people know a little bit more what they do. Not like. Exactly. Number one tip I can give for you guys, if you don't have a facebook group, you need to open one. Now. We just got an amazing testimonial back from Steven actually outside of publishing the facebook group that we helped him create and grow is the single single greatest thing that has driven his business forward. So you know, when you, when you understand that, like you need a face book group and you do it in a and for those of you that are watching on a podcast, you probably won't be able to visualize this. But if you're watching on the video, like imagine your social media as a circle, your facebook group needs to be at the center of it and everything needs to revolve around that because facebook group is the most interactive and intimate a social media platform for two reasons. They get to know you because there's an instagram stories which are great, but it's going to bring you the highest level of Roi because you can do live streams in there. You can make posts in there and 90 percent of the content in a facebook group is not your content, but you get credit for. Right? So if you have an engaged audience, they're publishing tons and tons of content. Your benefiting from that. And so if your focus is on growing rather than when you're on podcasts, be like, yeah, check out my website or check out my youtube channel or check out this. Or you just send everybody to the facebook group, podcasts, youtube channels, twitter, instagram, email, snapchat, wherever you're at. If you send everyone to the facebook group, then they, number one, see that you're awesome because you got all these members in there, they're all interacting with each other. Number two, they actually consume your content. I go in there, I go live. Yesterday I did a live and in the first like four hours I got 1.7k views in the first hour. Two hours, right? And so they watched, they consume, they interact, they engage. So do that. And this is once again coming down to exposure. Alright, my, the single greatest thing that will drive your business forward without a question is interviews and live streaming. Right? So really even talking about publishing on his podcast, I did that exact same thing except I did it on facebook live, that's only difference. And the reason I did it on facebook live is because number one, I didn't really know about podcasting when I first got started in entrepreneurship. I thought podcast were for losers. But I went and did it on facebook because that were my audience was. And so I would go and if there was a facebook group, I would go to the admin and I would say, hey. I started with one number, just like most of you will start with, I'm not that special, but when you get your first 100 members, 200 and 500, whatever you got, but once you hit that thousand number mark, you got leverage. So you can go to these facebook group owners and anybody else that has between one and 5,000 members, I hit him up. Or if you have a really good skill that a lot of people need, facebook group owners love that. All right, so you can teach something. Let's say you're really good at, I don't know, seo. You're really good at designing funnels. You're really good at anything, any skill that could potentially go find facebook groups of your ideal audience and you might be like, well why would they let me in there? I'm like, dude, it's your ideal audience, it's also their ideal audience. The more value you can provide to them. And I sat on interview after interview after interview, after interview and that's what blew me up. And then on top of that I live streamed for like 170 something days straight every single day. I did a live stream and so all the sudden I was getting tons of massive exposure and I was telling my skillset with a little bit of my story to each one of these places and luring them in and then they would come back and think about it. What's the first thing that you do when you see a live stream that somebody else is interviewing, you can click on their profile. You're going to go, where the heck is this dude? Right, so you go the profile, you've got that whole entire profile optimized for the link to your group and a call to action and all that, and then you've got 176 days of nothing but live streams. They're going to go consume that content and that is more of my story. That's more my storyline, so now I actually give them a reason on top of that 30 minute snippet, I give them a reason to come follow me and so this is true, like if you're trying to grow a facebook group or a facebook audience of any sort, exposure is your best friend and you get exposure through interviews and leveraging other people's audiences that already exists. I've never spent a single penny on ads. That's huge man. All this is huge. Why do you follow someone? You follow someone because of their story. You can be like, oh no, I follow so and so, because they're really good at photography. No, you follow that person because they told a story that got you interested in their photography because there are 10,000 photographers out there, but you follow that one, right? Why? Because of their story, so you got to have your story in whatever it is that you teach, and on top of that, you got to get exposure to that story, so go tell that story to tons and tons and tons and tons of people. That's the biggest thing, I want to end with this for you. Then I'll turn it back to you. People are like Josh, there are only so many ways I can share my story. People will eventually get bored of it. All I want to tell you to do is go look at Gary Vaynerchuk instagram page. Okay? And it will be like, what? I'm like, dude, the guy says the same five things over and over and over and over again. Give value, give value one, right? Hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle. I want to buy the New York jets. It's five or six things, said a different way. You know, I value young kids. I value. It's the same thing, but you love him. Grant Cardone's the same way. Tai Lopez, the same thing. Russell's a little bit better about getting interesting, but in reality it's really just the same stuff because people need to hear it different ways and people are fascinated by it and so when you can go and you say it and you tell your story, I've told the Webinar story 20k times. It's the same storyline, but I tell it a little bit differently based on the audience, so if I know that one audience is a little bit more beginner, I use more beginner terms and if I know they're a little bit more advanced, I use advanced terms. If I know that they're real estate agents, I'm going to tell things that are only pertinent to real estate agents. Right, and so just tell your story over and over and over again and remember, most people are only going to hear it once or twice. Most people are not actually consuming every piece of content you put out and the ones that are, they're regardless. They are not going to get sick of it. Like I listened to Russell, his salesforce blog where he went to salesforce blog, 12 minute vlog I have ever watched in its entirety. Why? I knew exactly what was gonna happen. I was like, dude, this guy's going to salesforce, his competitor I want to know. Right? He's going to tell that story 10,000 times and I'm probably gonna watch it 10,000 times. Why? Something that I'm interested in. Right? So tell your story. It's so important and don't be put into this little box of like, oh, facebook ads are the where it's at, or you don't listen to me and go, well, Josh says to only do instagram. No, like go, go, go get exposure. Right? Like I didn't stop at facebook groups. There's a funny story about how I got a lot of exposure and people don't think it's possible. I got interviewed twice on grant cardone's show. I've seen it, I've seen it. He promoted the our instagram course during the first 10 x growth con on his website. You know how that came about, we did not pay for those interviews. I literally added Grant Cardone on snapchat and I sent him a message and every day for like a week, I sent a period to bump my snapchat the top of his feed. All right. Because I'm like, dude, if I can get in front this guy like major exposure and guess what? He replied and my message was something super simple. It was like, hey grant, I know that you are looking for an instagram person, right? Because I did my market research, got to know that and I went and I was like, I know you need an instagram person. My business partner and I are really good. We got proven course, x number of followers. Would love to help you out in any way that's possible. His message back to me was so short and simple. It was, this is awesome. Would love to have you. Call this number and gave me a number. I had no idea who I was calling, right? Can you give me a name? Nothing. And it was intended up being Robert Syslow, which is director of video marketing and so now I've got Robert's number. We got down there and we're like, this is awesome. Because I sent them a message on snapchat. Why? Because I was looking for exposure. Just little things, little things, dude. I think that's the biggest, like false belief mindset that people have is like, oh, I can never get big enough people to interview or they don't ever want me to interview them or actually let me do it. You know what I mean? Nowadays is so freaking easy to get into somebody's circle. It really is. What's the big main point for them? Right. I can't offer a grant cardone exposure. Right. Or at least at the time I couldn't. Maybe I could a little bit now, but like I couldn't do it, but I found the one thing that I did, He was actually probably my first start in entrepreneurship because I was in sales. He's one heck of a guy, let me tell you, so you find out one thing and if it's not in your wheelhouse, figure out a way to make it in your wheelhouse. Or for example, there was a guy by the name of Jason Stone, we used to be more friends when I was more in the instagram game. He's a big Instagram influencer. So when I first started out back when I had 100,000 followers, this guy probably had like 3 million right? Between his accounts. The biggest one was probably like 1.5 million. So I'm reaching out to this guy and there's nothing that I can offer him about instagram, which is the only little thing that I know. So I'm like, how do I go and how do I get ahead? And so I literally would just watch every one of his stories, every one of his live streams looking for that thing. And I'm like, what is it that he needs? What is it that he needs? And then I found out that he said one day he's like, right now we are thinking about getting into youtube and kind of want to do this stuff. And I was like, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding. So I went to Jose who is my business partner at the time and I was like, dude, you know, Youtube, right? And he's like, yeah, we know some stuff. I was like, who do we know that we could connect with Jason? And so we found, I forget, I don't even know who it was, but there was some video editor guy that had like a bunch of experience with youtube, Tim somebody I think. Anyway, so he reached out to Jason and send him an email and were like, dude, Jason, big fan and I'm talking about making videos. And then we're like, hey, saw on your story that you're looking into youtube, would love to connect you to our buddy over here that does this. Sure he would hook you up with a sweet deal as a referral, blah, blah, blah. Would that be interesting to you? And so he emails back and we kind of go back and forth and that's how we struck up a friendship and got to know him. And then at the event he sees us and he's on stage. He's like, what's up guys? We got pictures with him and that's how we got into his circle and now we get some good deals. It's is little things. It's not like you were huge or big influencer. No! I was a nobody. And I wouldn't say this though. And I want to say it with caution. I would super not recommend reaching out to grant cardone if you have no results. Don't waste is his time. Right? But Dana Derek talks about the dream 100 strategy and that's basically what this is more or less. I'm a big fan of the dream 100 strategy. I am not a big fan of it as an actual business model because it's not consistent. You don't drive consistent traffic that way. And so if you're trying to build a balanced business where you can know numbers, dollar in dollar out, I don't recommend this, but I recommend it in addition to that because it can bring additional massive amounts of exposure. That's just for me and take that advice more or less as you will, but when you're at the beginning, reach out to a person that you can directly affect that has an ideal audience in your area. So I made friends with Arnie guesty early on. He wasn't that big. It paid off well. But also early on I made friends with Jason Stone. I could offer him nothing. Virtually nothing, right? I had no experience compared to what it was. So I found that thing. Don't start by going, I'm going to dream 100. Gary Vaynerchuk, you got nothing to offer that guy, dude. Like I'm sorry, but start with someone. And then as you work your way up, go bigger and bigger and bigger and then every now and then once you kind of have a feel for what you're doing, take a shot. Right? I took a shot on grant Cardone, did not expect it to pay off. It did! It changed my business, right? Moved it forward in a direction. Jumpstarted a lot of things. Got of a lot of exposure from that. But I didn't depend upon that for my whole business model. I didn't go like we're with greg cardone, let's take out loans and go this and do this. I used it to drive my business forward and moving forward. And now grant cardone knows who I am and so does Robert and all that. I've been on his show. I want to say thank you so much for being on here and dropping as many gold nuggets as you did. I know my listeners will get a ton out of this and anybody who waches in the future- this is huge man and this is stuff that's going to stick around for a long time too, the stuff that you shared wasn't just like, oh, this is what's happening this week, no- it's stuff that's going to be sticking around for awhile. Sure. It changes, but the principles are all there, you know? Yeah. And on that note, I think it's really good to remember when a new platform comes out ike when I started on Instagram, there's a lot of hacks or tricks to get ahead, as any platform develops. And you look at the big platforms right now, facebook, instagram, youtube, like those are your three big pillars. When you understand that leg, they all function the same way more or less. None of those three platforms produce their own content. Okay? All of them are driven by users, meaning the longer they'll user stays on the platform, the more money that they make. And the thing that brings or that keeps people on platform is a good content. Instagram is not your enemy. People are always like, oh, the algorithm. I'm like, no, the algorithm actually would work amazingly in your favor if you actually put out good content. So understand that if a new platform emerges and evolves, yes, there's going to be hacks and tricks to get majorly ahead and to capitalize upon that. But there's also a lot of risk and there's also a lot of confusion on that. However, a lot of the social media strategies that we talk about here has very little to do with the platform. The basic stuff I don't want to waste your guys' time on like make sure your profile is optimized. That stuff is common sense guys. Right? Use your mind and think of, Hey, I'm doing my business online. I should probably look like a business owner. Right? There are certain logical things that you should do. But above and beyond the logical things, it really is like three or four core principles, whether it's in marketing or whether it's in this and I love the 80/20- rule the further along and getting business and the more I realized that it's applicable, 20 percent of this stuff drives 80 percent of the facts. Right. And at 80 percent of stuff that you do is basically worthless. When you double down on that 20 percent, I just hired an assistant actually long ago, actual full time and I pay her 40 hours a week, the whole nine yards. I'm a legit company now. Letting go of that outsourcing stuff, I felt like my business was going to fall apart. There's no way I could possibly outsource posting on instagram. I could never teach someone my skills of being able to do it. It's not true, you know? The same thing is true in social media. Eighty percent of the stuff that you guys are worrying about, like my live stream got cutoff 30 minutes in and I wasn't able to wrap up. It is not going to change your business. Stop worrying about that stuff. People are not going to unfollow you because one live stream of yours got cut out or because you accidentally dropped your phone or you accidentally made a slip up. You know what I mean? That just makes you look normal, it's happens. I think it's actually good at certain points or different times. And I think that there's a balance between being real and being professional. Social media is typically that place to be a little bit more real. As soon as you click off of social media and you enter that funnel and you enter that Webinar or you enter that sales call or whatever it is, you need to be very professional. Right now you're running a business, social media to relate, you can get away. People see me all the time and they're like, Oh Josh, you get on live streams or whatever with your shorts and your this and that, and you're just so real and authentic. I'm like, yes, but if you talk to me in person, you do what you say you're going to do. You don't mess up and you follow through. If I'm paying you money, you do your job and if you're paying me money I am going to do mine. I don't go, oh, it's okay. No, like we're running a business here, right? Social media, and this is where I think a lot of people get it wrong. Social media is just a marketing tool when you're using it for that. Right? And so people are like, oh no, it's my lifestyle and I want to be all truly authentic in this. If that's how you run your business, you're probably not going to get very far. So use social media as the tool that is designed and don't become obsessed with it like I did at the beginning. Don't make social media your reality because once you make social media your reality, a lot of your life falls apart and I've seen it happen to a lot of people. It's happened to me in certain areas, so be careful with it, but it's very, very powerful. Wow. Well, thanks again so much Josh. I'm going to wrap this up. This is a little bit longer of an interview. Thank you so much for taking your time and spending it with everybody that's going to listen to this and the followers. Thanks a ton. We'll talk to you guys later. Are you looking to jumpstart your business by learning or getting help from the real experts. Go to LearningFromTheExperts.com to find preapproved experts that I've handpicked for you! Please don't forget to let me know how I'm doing by subscribing, rating and leaving feedback.  

Michael Kabbaz is Vice President , Division of Enrollment Management and Student Success at Miami University. His Division includes Offices of Admission, Bursar, Career Services, Enrollment Communication, Enrollment Operations and One Stop Services, Enrollment Research and Analysis, University Registrar,Student Financial Assistance and the Student Success Center.

Michael Kabbaz is Vice President , Division of Enrollment Management and Student Success at Miami University. His Division includes Offices of Admission, Bursar, Career Services, Enrollment Communication, Enrollment Operations and One Stop Services, Enrollment Research and Analysis, University Registrar,Student Financial Assistance and the Student Success Center.

Panic mode: activated. Def Com Chan. Suzanne, Amber and Tonya get together to get through this turning point episode, "Josh Is A Liar." How could Rebecca do that to Paula? How could the Bursar know that Heather is ready to graduate? (That is straight-up Registrar territory.) How could Nathaniel not realize that George is his personal Paula? How could Josh's friends not even given him the benefit of the doubt? How could Josh not listen to Hector's podcast? We answer your questions, award our Giant Pretzels of the week and give our self-care recommendations for staying healthy and decidedly un-Bunch-like. SONGS: The Moment Is Me (Rachel Bloom, Jack Dolgen and Adam Schlesinger, performed by Vella Lovell) I Go To The Zoo (Rachel Bloom, Jack Dolgen and Adam Schlesinger, performed by Scott Michael Foster) 

  Welcome to MR, the podcast for beginners and insiders about the ideas, people and movements who have shaped rhetorical history. I’m Mary Hedengren and a big thanks to the Humanities Media Project at the University of Texas for support for this show. Also thanks to Jacob in the booth. Today, All Hallow’s Eve is upon us and it’s been a long time since I attempted some terrible British accents, which means it’s time for the Mere Rhetoric HALLOWEEN SPECIAL [thunder sounds? Screeching cat? What have you.] But first, some background.   When you’re asked to give a description of what rhetoric is, as we did in our very first episode, What is Rhetoric?, you might say something like, “It’s the use of words to persuade someone,” and you would imagine someone in a toga standing around on a rostom shout-talking at people, but that’s not exactly all rhetoric is. Remember Kenneth Burke’s definition of rhetoric: that we can “influence each other's thinking and behavior through the strategic use of symbols.” Even Aristotle says that rhetoric is about discovering the available means of persuasion. Verbal or alphabetic rhetoric is only one of those available means of persuasion. Visual rhetoric is another.   As you might suspect, visual rhetoric focuses on other kinds of symbols than just words. Visual rhetoricians might interrogate the influence on other people of war posters, cartoons, even the layout of airport security. But visual rhetoric isn’t just about the object of study.   Sonja Foss puts it this way:   Visual rhetoric refers not only to the visual object as a communicative artifact but also to a perspective scholars take on visual imagery or visual data. In this meaning of the term, visual rhetoric constitutes a theoretical perspective that involves the analysis of the symbolic or communicative aspects of visual artifacts. It is a critical-analytical tool or a way of approaching and analyzing visual data that highlights the communicative dimensions of images or objects (305-306)   As you might imagine, visual rhetoric opens up a lot of possiblities for scholars. And those scholars will need more theories of how to approach that those artifacts. Foss herself suggests that critics look first at the elements of the object, then   Kostelnick and Roberts create canons of visual rhetoric [what do you think? The cannon sound again?] Really? As I was saying, these canons of visual rehtoric  parallel the classical canons of rhetoric. these canons can be remembered by the British-inspired acronym CACE-TE, but you have to be creative with your spelling the first C stand for Clarity, or ease of understanding for the reader. A stands for arrangement, how the visual elements are laid out; the second C (I told you that you had to be creative in how you spell CACE) is for concision with nothing extraneous; the E is for emphasis. TE is also spelled poorly: T for tone--sarcastic or sincere, loving or rageful and E for ethos--demonstrating good will for the reader. Clarity, Arrangement, Concision, Emphasis Tone, Ethos: Cake and tea. Do you know what else is british? M. R. James ghost stories. And this year’s story demonstrates the dark side of looking too deeply into visual artifacts. And so, without futher aido, M. R. James’ 1904 story, “The Mezzotint.” Some time ago I believe I had the pleasure of telling you the story of an adventure which happened to a friend of mine by the name of Dennistoun, during his pursuit of objects of art for the museum at Cambridge.   He did not publish his experiences very widely upon his return to England; but they could not fail to become known to a good many of his friends, and among others to the gentleman who at that time presided over an art museum at another University. It was to be expected that the story should make a considerable impression on the mind of a man whose vocation lay in lines similar to Dennistoun’s, and that he should be eager to catch at any explanation of the matter which tended to make it seem improbable that he should ever be called upon to deal with so agitating an emergency. It was, indeed, somewhat consoling to him to reflect that he was not expected to acquire ancient MSS. for his institution; that was the business of the Shelburnian Library. The authorities of that institution might, if they pleased, ransack obscure corners of the Continent for such matters. He was glad to be obliged at the moment to confine his attention to enlarging the already unsurpassed collection of English topographical drawings and engravings possessed by his museum. Yet, as it turned out, even a department so homely and familiar as this may have its dark corners, and to one of these Mr Williams was unexpectedly introduced.   Those who have taken even the most limited interest in the acquisition of topographical pictures are aware that there is one London dealer whose aid is indispensable to their researches. Mr J. W. Britnell publishes at short intervals very admirable catalogues of a large and constantly changing stock of engravings, plans, and old sketches of mansions, churches, and towns in England and Wales. These catalogues were, of course, the ABC of his subject to Mr Williams: but as his museum already contained an enormous accumulation of topographical pictures, he was a regular, rather than a copious, buyer; and he rather looked to Mr Britnell to fill up gaps in the rank and file of his collection than to supply him with rarities.   Now, in February of last year there appeared upon Mr Williams’s desk at the museum a catalogue from Mr Britnell’s emporium, and accompanying it was a typewritten communication from the dealer himself. This latter ran as follows:   Dear Sir,   We beg to call your attention to No. 978 in our accompanying catalogue, which we shall be glad to send on approval.   Yours faithfully,   W. Britnell.   To turn to No. 978 in the accompanying catalogue was with Mr. Williams (as he observed to himself) the work of a moment, and in the place indicated he found the following entry:   978.— Unknown. Interesting mezzotint: View of a manor-house, early part of the century. 15 by 10 inches; black frame. £2 2s.   It was not specially exciting, and the price seemed high. However, as Mr Britnell, who knew his business and his customer, seemed to set store by it, Mr Williams wrote a postcard asking for the article to be sent on approval, along with some other engravings and sketches which appeared in the same catalogue. And so he passed without much excitement of anticipation to the ordinary labours of the day.   A parcel of any kind always arrives a day later than you expect it, and that of Mr Britnell proved, as I believe the right phrase goes, no exception to the rule. It was delivered at the museum by the afternoon post of Saturday, after Mr Williams had left his work, and it was accordingly brought round to his rooms in college by the attendant, in order that he might not have to wait over Sunday before looking through it and returning such of the contents as he did not propose to keep. And here he found it when he came in to tea, with a friend.   The only item with which I am concerned was the rather large, black-framed mezzotint of which I have already quoted the short description given in Mr Britnell’s catalogue. Some more details of it will have to be given, though I cannot hope to put before you the look of the picture as clearly as it is present to my own eye. Very nearly the exact duplicate of it may be seen in a good many old inn parlours, or in the passages of undisturbed country mansions at the present moment. It was a rather indifferent mezzotint, and an indifferent mezzotint is, perhaps, the worst form of engraving known. It presented a full-face view of a not very large manor-house of the last century, with three rows of plain sashed windows with rusticated masonry about them, a parapet with balls or vases at the angles, and a small portico in the centre. On either side were trees, and in front a considerable expanse of lawn. The legend A. W. F. sculpsit was engraved on the narrow margin; and there was no further inscription. The whole thing gave the impression that it was the work of an amateur. What in the world Mr Britnell could mean by affixing the price of £2 2s. to such an object was more than Mr Williams could imagine. He turned it over with a good deal of contempt; upon the back was a paper label, the left-hand half of which had been torn off. All that remained were the ends of two lines of writing; the first had the letters — ngley Hall ; the second,— ssex .   It would, perhaps, be just worth while to identify the place represented, which he could easily do with the help of a gazetteer, and then he would send it back to Mr Britnell, with some remarks reflecting upon the judgement of that gentleman.   He lighted the candles, for it was now dark, made the tea, and supplied the friend with whom he had been playing golf (for I believe the authorities of the University I write of indulge in that pursuit by way of relaxation); and tea was taken to the accompaniment of a discussion which golfing persons can imagine for themselves, but which the conscientious writer has no right to inflict upon any non-golfing persons.   The conclusion arrived at was that certain strokes might have been better, and that in certain emergencies neither player had experienced that amount of luck which a human being has a right to expect. It was now that the friend — let us call him Professor Binks — took up the framed engraving and said:   ‘What’s this place, Williams?’   ‘Just what I am going to try to find out,’ said Williams, going to the shelf for a gazetteer. ‘Look at the back. Somethingley Hall, either in Sussex or Essex. Half the name’s gone, you see. You don’t happen to know it, I suppose?’   ‘It’s from that man Britnell, I suppose, isn’t it?’ said Binks. ‘Is it for the museum?’   ‘Well, I think I should buy it if the price was five shillings,’ said Williams; ‘but for some unearthly reason he wants two guineas for it. I can’t conceive why. It’s a wretched engraving, and there aren’t even any figures to give it life.’   ‘It’s not worth two guineas, I should think,’ said Binks; ‘but I don’t think it’s so badly done. The moonlight seems rather good to me; and I should have thought there were figures, or at least a figure, just on the edge in front.’   ‘Let’s look,’ said Williams. ‘Well, it’s true the light is rather cleverly given. Where’s your figure? Oh, yes! Just the head, in the very front of the picture.’   And indeed there was — hardly more than a black blot on the extreme edge of the engraving — the head of a man or woman, a good deal muffled up, the back turned to the spectator, and looking towards the house.   Williams had not noticed it before.   ‘Still,’ he said, ‘though it’s a cleverer thing than I thought, I can’t spend two guineas of museum money on a picture of a place I don’t know.’   Professor Binks had his work to do, and soon went; and very nearly up to Hall time Williams was engaged in a vain attempt to identify the subject of his picture. ‘If the vowel before the ng had only been left, it would have been easy enough,’ he thought; ‘but as it is, the name may be anything from Guestingley to Langley, and there are many more names ending like this than I thought; and this rotten book has no index of terminations.’   Hall in Mr Williams’s college was at seven. It need not be dwelt upon; the less so as he met there colleagues who had been playing golf during the afternoon, and words with which we have no concern were freely bandied across the table — merely golfing words, I would hasten to explain.   I suppose an hour or more to have been spent in what is called common-room after dinner. Later in the evening some few retired to Williams’s rooms, and I have little doubt that whist was played and tobacco smoked. During a lull in these operations Williams picked up the mezzotint from the table without looking at it, and handed it to a person mildly interested in art, telling him where it had come from, and the other particulars which we already know.   The gentleman took it carelessly, looked at it, then said, in a tone of some interest:   ‘It’s really a very good piece of work, Williams; it has quite a feeling of the romantic period. The light is admirably managed, it seems to me, and the figure, though it’s rather too grotesque, is somehow very impressive.’   ‘Yes, isn’t it?’ said Williams, who was just then busy giving whisky and soda to others of the company, and was unable to come across the room to look at the view again.   It was by this time rather late in the evening, and the visitors were on the move. After they went Williams was obliged to write a letter or two and clear up some odd bits of work. At last, some time past midnight, he was disposed to turn in, and he put out his lamp after lighting his bedroom candle. The picture lay face upwards on the table where the last man who looked at it had put it, and it caught his eye as he turned the lamp down. What he saw made him very nearly drop the candle on the floor, and he declares now if he had been left in the dark at that moment he would have had a fit. But, as that did not happen, he was able to put down the light on the table and take a good look at the picture. It was indubitable — rankly impossible, no doubt, but absolutely certain. In the middle of the lawn in front of the unknown house there was a figure where no figure had been at five o’clock that afternoon. It was crawling on all fours towards the house, and it was muffled in a strange black garment with a white cross on the back.   I do not know what is the ideal course to pursue in a situation of this kind, I can only tell you what Mr Williams did. He took the picture by one corner and carried it across the passage to a second set of rooms which he possessed. There he locked it up in a drawer, sported the doors of both sets of rooms, and retired to bed; but first he wrote out and signed an account of the extraordinary change which the picture had undergone since it had come into his possession.   Sleep visited him rather late; but it was consoling to reflect that the behaviour of the picture did not depend upon his own unsupported testimony. Evidently the man who had looked at it the night before had seen something of the same kind as he had, otherwise he might have been tempted to think that something gravely wrong was happening either to his eyes or his mind. This possibility being fortunately precluded, two matters awaited him on the morrow. He must take stock of the picture very carefully, and call in a witness for the purpose, and he must make a determined effort to ascertain what house it was that was represented. He would therefore ask his neighbour Nisbet to breakfast with him, and he would subsequently spend a morning over the gazetteer.   Nisbet was disengaged, and arrived about 9.20. His host was not quite dressed, I am sorry to say, even at this late hour. During breakfast nothing was said about the mezzotint by Williams, save that he had a picture on which he wished for Nisbet’s opinion. But those who are familiar with University life can picture for themselves the wide and delightful range of subjects over which the conversation of two Fellows of Canterbury College is likely to extend during a Sunday morning breakfast. Hardly a topic was left unchallenged, from golf to lawn-tennis. Yet I am bound to say that Williams was rather distraught; for his interest naturally centred in that very strange picture which was now reposing, face downwards, in the drawer in the room opposite.   The morning pipe was at last lighted, and the moment had arrived for which he looked. With very considerable — almost tremulous — excitement he ran across, unlocked the drawer, and, extracting the picture — still face downwards — ran back, and put it into Nisbet’s hands.   ‘Now,’ he said, ‘Nisbet, I want you to tell me exactly what you see in that picture. Describe it, if you don’t mind, rather minutely. I’ll tell you why afterwards.’   ‘Well,’ said Nisbet, ‘I have here a view of a country-house — English, I presume — by moonlight.’   ‘Moonlight? You’re sure of that?’   ‘Certainly. The moon appears to be on the wane, if you wish for details, and there are clouds in the sky.’   ‘All right. Go on. I’ll swear,’ added Williams in an aside, ‘there was no moon when I saw it first.’   ‘Well, there’s not much more to be said,’ Nisbet continued. ‘The house has one — two — three rows of windows, five in each row, except at the bottom, where there’s a porch instead of the middle one, and —’   ‘But what about figures?’ said Williams, with marked interest.   ‘There aren’t any,’ said Nisbet; ‘but —’   ‘What! No figure on the grass in front?’   ‘Not a thing.’   ‘You’ll swear to that?’   ‘Certainly I will. But there’s just one other thing.’   ‘What?’   ‘Why, one of the windows on the ground-floor — left of the door — is open.’   ‘Is it really so? My goodness! he must have got in,’ said Williams, with great excitement; and he hurried to the back of the sofa on which Nisbet was sitting, and, catching the picture from him, verified the matter for himself.   It was quite true. There was no figure, and there was the open window. Williams, after a moment of speechless surprise, went to the writing-table and scribbled for a short time. Then he brought two papers to Nisbet, and asked him first to sign one — it was his own description of the picture, which you have just heard — and then to read the other which was Williams’s statement written the night before.   ‘What can it all mean?’ said Nisbet.   ‘Exactly,’ said Williams. ‘Well, one thing I must do — or three things, now I think of it. I must find out from Garwood’— this was his last night’s visitor —‘what he saw, and then I must get the thing photographed before it goes further, and then I must find out what the place is.’   ‘I can do the photographing myself,’ said Nisbet, ‘and I will. But, you know, it looks very much as if we were assisting at the working out of a tragedy somewhere. The question is, has it happened already, or is it going to come off? You must find out what the place is. Yes,’ he said, looking at the picture again, ‘I expect you’re right: he has got in. And if I don’t mistake, there’ll be the devil to pay in one of the rooms upstairs.’   ‘I’ll tell you what,’ said Williams: ‘I’ll take the picture across to old Green’ (this was the senior Fellow of the College, who had been Bursar for many years). ‘It’s quite likely he’ll know it. We have property in Essex and Sussex, and he must have been over the two counties a lot in his time.’   ‘Quite likely he will,’ said Nisbet; ‘but just let me take my photograph first. But look here, I rather think Green isn’t up today. He wasn’t in Hall last night, and I think I heard him say he was going down for the Sunday.’   ‘That’s true, too,’ said Williams; ‘I know he’s gone to Brighton. Well, if you’ll photograph it now, I’ll go across to Garwood and get his statement, and you keep an eye on it while I’m gone. I’m beginning to think two guineas is not a very exorbitant price for it now.’   In a short time he had returned, and brought Mr Garwood with him. Garwood’s statement was to the effect that the figure, when he had seen it, was clear of the edge of the picture, but had not got far across the lawn. He remembered a white mark on the back of its drapery, but could not have been sure it was a cross. A document to this effect was then drawn up and signed, and Nisbet proceeded to photograph the picture.   ‘Now what do you mean to do?’ he said. ‘Are you going to sit and watch it all day?’   ‘Well, no, I think not,’ said Williams. ‘I rather imagine we’re meant to see the whole thing. You see, between the time I saw it last night and this morning there was time for lots of things to happen, but the creature only got into the house. It could easily have got through its business in the time and gone to its own place again; but the fact of the window being open, I think, must mean that it’s in there now. So I feel quite easy about leaving it. And besides, I have a kind of idea that it wouldn’t change much, if at all, in the daytime. We might go out for a walk this afternoon, and come in to tea, or whenever it gets dark. I shall leave it out on the table here, and sport the door. My skip can get in, but no one else.’   The three agreed that this would be a good plan; and, further, that if they spent the afternoon together they would be less likely to talk about the business to other people; for any rumour of such a transaction as was going on would bring the whole of the Phasmatological Society about their ears.   We may give them a respite until five o’clock.   At or near that hour the three were entering Williams’s staircase. They were at first slightly annoyed to see that the door of his rooms was unsported; but in a moment it was remembered that on Sunday the skips came for orders an hour or so earlier than on weekdays. However, a surprise was awaiting them. The first thing they saw was the picture leaning up against a pile of books on the table, as it had been left, and the next thing was Williams’s skip, seated on a chair opposite, gazing at it with undisguised horror. How was this? Mr Filcher (the name is not my own invention) was a servant of considerable standing, and set the standard of etiquette to all his own college and to several neighbouring ones, and nothing could be more alien to his practice than to be found sitting on his master’s chair, or appearing to take any particular notice of his master’s furniture or pictures. Indeed, he seemed to feel this himself. He started violently when the three men were in the room, and got up with a marked effort. Then he said:   ‘I ask your pardon, sir, for taking such a freedom as to set down.’   ‘Not at all, Robert,’ interposed Mr Williams. ‘I was meaning to ask you some time what you thought of that picture.’   ‘Well, sir, of course I don’t set up my opinion against yours, but it ain’t the pictur I should ‘ang where my little girl could see it, sir.’   ‘Wouldn’t you, Robert? Why not?’   ‘No, sir. Why, the pore child, I recollect once she see a Door Bible, with pictures not ‘alf what that is, and we ‘ad to set up with her three or four nights afterwards, if you’ll believe me; and if she was to ketch a sight of this skelinton here, or whatever it is, carrying off the pore baby, she would be in a taking. You know ‘ow it is with children; ‘ow nervish they git with a little thing and all. But what I should say, it don’t seem a right pictur to be laying about, sir, not where anyone that’s liable to be startled could come on it. Should you be wanting anything this evening, sir? Thank you, sir.’   With these words the excellent man went to continue the round of his masters, and you may be sure the gentlemen whom he left lost no time in gathering round the engraving. There was the house, as before under the waning moon and the drifting clouds. The window that had been open was shut, and the figure was once more on the lawn: but not this time crawling cautiously on hands and knees. Now it was erect and stepping swiftly, with long strides, towards the front of the picture. The moon was behind it, and the black drapery hung down over its face so that only hints of that could be seen, and what was visible made the spectators profoundly thankful that they could see no more than a white dome-like forehead and a few straggling hairs. The head was bent down, and the arms were tightly clasped over an object which could be dimly seen and identified as a child, whether dead or living it was not possible to say. The legs of the appearance alone could be plainly discerned, and they were horribly thin.   From five to seven the three companions sat and watched the picture by turns. But it never changed. They agreed at last that it would be safe to leave it, and that they would return after Hall and await further developments.   When they assembled again, at the earliest possible moment, the engraving was there, but the figure was gone, and the house was quiet under the moonbeams. There was nothing for it but to spend the evening over gazetteers and guide-books. Williams was the lucky one at last, and perhaps he deserved it. At 11.30 p.m. he read from Murray’s Guide to Essex the following lines:   16–1/2 miles, Anningley . The church has been an interesting building of Norman date, but was extensively classicized in the last century. It contains the tomb of the family of Francis, whose mansion, Anningley Hall, a solid Queen Anne house, stands immediately beyond the churchyard in a park of about 80 acres. The family is now extinct, the last heir having disappeared mysteriously in infancy in the year 1802. The father, Mr Arthur Francis, was locally known as a talented amateur engraver in mezzotint. After his son’s disappearance he lived in complete retirement at the Hall, and was found dead in his studio on the third anniversary of the disaster, having just completed an engraving of the house, impressions of which are of considerable rarity.   This looked like business, and, indeed, Mr Green on his return at once identified the house as Anningley Hall.   ‘Is there any kind of explanation of the figure, Green?’ was the question which Williams naturally asked.   ‘I don’t know, I’m sure, Williams. What used to be said in the place when I first knew it, which was before I came up here, was just this: old Francis was always very much down on these poaching fellows, and whenever he got a chance he used to get a man whom he suspected of it turned off the estate, and by degrees he got rid of them all but one. Squires could do a lot of things then that they daren’t think of now. Well, this man that was left was what you find pretty often in that country — the last remains of a very old family. I believe they were Lords of the Manor at one time. I recollect just the same thing in my own parish.’   ‘What, like the man in Tess o’ the Durbervilles ?’ Williams put in.   ‘Yes, I dare say; it’s not a book I could ever read myself. But this fellow could show a row of tombs in the church there that belonged to his ancestors, and all that went to sour him a bit; but Francis, they said, could never get at him — he always kept just on the right side of the law — until one night the keepers found him at it in a wood right at the end of the estate. I could show you the place now; it marches with some land that used to belong to an uncle of mine. And you can imagine there was a row; and this man Gawdy (that was the name, to be sure — Gawdy; I thought I should get it — Gawdy), he was unlucky enough, poor chap! to shoot a keeper. Well, that was what Francis wanted, and grand juries — you know what they would have been then — and poor Gawdy was strung up in double-quick time; and I’ve been shown the place he was buried in, on the north side of the church — you know the way in that part of the world: anyone that’s been hanged or made away with themselves, they bury them that side. And the idea was that some friend of Gawdy’s — not a relation, because he had none, poor devil! he was the last of his line: kind of spes ultima gentis — must have planned to get hold of Francis’s boy and put an end to his line, too. I don’t know — it’s rather an out-of-the-way thing for an Essex poacher to think of — but, you know, I should say now it looks more as if old Gawdy had managed the job himself. Booh! I hate to think of it! have some whisky, Williams!’   The facts were communicated by Williams to Dennistoun, and by him to a mixed company, of which I was one, and the Sadducean Professor of Ophiology another. I am sorry to say that the latter when asked what he thought of it, only remarked: ‘Oh, those Bridgeford people will say anything’— a sentiment which met with the reception it deserved.   I have only to add that the picture is now in the Ashleian Museum; that it has been treated with a view to discovering whether sympathetic ink has been used in it, but without effect; that Mr Britnell knew nothing of it save that he was sure it was uncommon; and that, though carefully watched, it has never been known to change again.    

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. Representatives from College Aid, the Bursar, Student Loan Administration, and Student Employment will explain the roles of their offices and how they can be supportive to you and your student as you negotiate your investment in a University of Chicago education.

Hosts: Jim, Jon & KentGuest: THE Jim Harris In this episode, we create a Steampunk / Victorian Fantasy mashup setting. As the British Empire rolls out its engines of industry, the indigenous populations of its colonies call upon ancient magics to drive them out! Meanwhile, the Druids watch and wait and a sinister figure playing all sides against each other watches from the shadows...Image courtesy of ImgurJoin Jim Harris' cult on Facebook!RECOMMENDATIONS: Jon recommends The Mongoliad by Neal Stephenson.Mentioned in this Episode:SteampunkOrnithopterThe Da Vinci CodeBritish EmpireBoxer RebellionThe Royal SocietyThe League of S.T.E.A.M.GhostbustersDruidOxford UniversityBursarNational Geographic SocietyWicker ManGlastonburyThe Hermetic Order of the Golden DawnD&D DruidField Marshal KitchenerGaiaThe Green ManCernunnosCeltic PantheonBrigidArithmancyYog-SothothCthulhu"The only winning move is not to play."Boudica Episode 20 - Sorcerer's Gambit Download

WUSC, in collaboration with The Daily Gamecock, presents a daily 90.5 Seconds of the News: Rundown A. Weather B. Bursar and Registrar moving buildings in 2012 C. Three men arrested as suspects in Five Points brawl D. Darius Rucker selected E. Women's volleyball drops contests this weekend F. Looper Review

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. The University of Chicago's Graduate Student Affairs (GSA) hosts a Q&A for graduate students on how to report taxes. A panel of experts from Financial Services, Office of the Bursar, and Student Loan Administration discuss taxes as they pertain to stipends and financial aid for graduate students, and give the basics of how taxes apply to graduate student funding.

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. The University of Chicago's Graduate Student Affairs (GSA) hosts a Q&A for graduate students on how to report taxes. A panel of experts from Financial Services, Office of the Bursar, and Student Loan Administration discuss taxes as they pertain to stipends and financial aid for graduate students, and give the basics of how taxes apply to graduate student funding.

**Today's host(s):** Scot Landry and Fr. Chris O'Connor **Today's guest(s):** Fr. Michael Barber, SJ, director of spiritual formation at St. John's Seminary **Today's topics:** The Chrism Mass of Holy Week and Cardinal Seán's homily **A summary of today's show:** Cardinal Seán's homily for the Chrism Mass on Tuesday of Holy Week calls on priests to humility and courage and greater immersion in the Word of God in order to be strengthened in their vocations and to be united in Christ for their mission.  **1st segment:** Scot said we began Holy Week this past Palm Sunday. There are so many powerful opportunities for learning more about our Faith and getting closer to Christ this week. Today we are going to discuss the Chrism Mass, which occurred earlier today, and then look ahead to all the liturgies of this Holy Week.  At 11am this morning at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Cardinal Sean and hundreds of concelebrating priests celebrated the Chrism Mass, which is a tradition for Tuesday of Holy Week in the Archdiocese of Boston and many dioceses. There are 2 unique aspects of the annual Chrism Mass: (a) The consecration of the Holy Chrism oil: (b) the celebration of the priesthood and renewal of priestly vows. Here is what today's Mass program said about both: >All Christians are anointed because all are filled with the Spirit's gifts for the building up of the church and the church's service to the world. In every local church one Christian presides in love and orchestrates the church's ministry: this is the bishop, or chief pastor. It is not surprising, therefore, that the most ancient liturgical witnesses designate the bishop as the consecrator of the sacramental oils. Although priests once blessed the oils of the catechumens and the sick and may do so in some circumstances, only the bishop may consecrate the chrism with which the baptized are sealed at confirmation and ordination. This rite is one of the last rites of preparation before the Triduum begins. Before the local church baptizes, it prepares the chrism which will be used in the Vigil. > >This celebration has always retained a special character of priestly collegiality. Even in the centuries when eucharistic concelebration had disappeared from the church's life, the ritual for the blessing and consecration of oils retained strong elements which reminded all that ministry in the church is never the work of an individual but of a community of ministers of different gifts and responsibilities. The present celebration of the rite has been restored as a full concelebration of the bishop with his clergy and with the full participation of the laity. Scot welcomes Father Chris O'Connor our Tuesday co-host. What does the Chrism Mass mean for him as a priest of the Archdiocese of Boston? Fr. Chris said it is a reaffirmation of the priests to the Lord in a special way and it's powerful to do that with your brother priests. It's a beautiful celebration of the priesthood with the bishop. It is a priestly fraternity. It is wonderful to look around the cathedral to see so many priests who have rendered service to God's family. Scot said it is amazing to see all the priests that are there and the diversity of ages, ethnicity, and national original. Fr. Chris said what unites us is faith in Jesus Christ. He said there is also the practical reason for them to come together, which is to get the oils that they will use in their parishes throughout the year: the oils for baptism and anointing of the sick and confirmation. Scot said Cardinal Seán gives one of his best and one of his longest homilies each year at the Chrism Mass. In many ways it is a message directly to priests and indirectly to all of us who support our priests and minister with them in the Church. We're going to discuss many elements of his homily today. Fr. Chris said it was a great and rousing homily. Father Chris and Scot are joined by Father Michael Barber, the new director of spiritual formation at St. John's Seminary as of last Fall. Fr. Barber's first connection to Boston was when he was on the apostolic visitation team implemented the Vatican and he was sent to Boston. He had a very positive impression. He also got to know many Boston priests during his time as a military chaplain. Fr. Barber's background: * Saint John's new Director of Spiritual Formation, Father Michael Barber, SJ grew up in San Francisco and Sacramento, California. He followed the normal 12 year course of Jesuit studies, with philosophy at Gonzaga University, Spokane, and Theology at Regis College, University of Toronto. * Ordained in 1985, he was sent for two years of missionary work in Western Samoa, Polynesia. He was then sent to the Gregorian University in Rome to study and teach Dogmatic Theology. Father Barber's research centered on the unpublished sermon manuscripts of Blessed John Henry (Cardinal) Newman. From Rome, he was sent to Oxford University as a research fellow at Campion Hall, the Jesuit college at Oxford. He subsequently was elected Bursar and tutor in theology there. * He later was appointed by Archbishop (now Cardinal) William Levada as Director of the School of Pastoral Leadership in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, followed by eight years as Director of Spiritual Formation and assistant professor of theology at St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park, California. Father Barber was commissioned in 1991 as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, and currently holds the rank of Commander. He was called up for the invasion of Iraq in 2003 as Catholic chaplain to the 6,000 Marines in the 4th Marine Air Wing. He is currently assistant division chaplain to the 4th Marine Division, USMC. Fr. Barber recalls attending the Chrism Mass in the Archdiocese of Verona, Italy, and how every single space in the cathedral being filled by priests. They also had the custom of presenting new seminarians to the bishop at that Mass. Triduum means three, referring to the three days of Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday. These days represent the summit of all we believe as Christians. Scot said that if you wanted to start to take your faith seriously, this is the week to do it by focusing on the liturgies of this week. **2nd segment:**  Clips from Cardinal Sean's homily will now be played and discussed. *Costly Grace*: >At times the demands of one's vocation can seem overwhelming. It is truly a costly grace. And so it is with the priestly vocation. There are always more and more demands, more instructions from headquarters, new programs to be implemented, the bishop's latest brainchild. Today, at the Chrism Mass, I am happy for the opportunity to be able to say how much the whole Catholic community appreciates the tireless work of our priests and as your Bishop, I am particularly grateful for your generous dedication to ministry. These are very challenging times for the church. Business as usual is not enough if we are going to be able to fulfill our mission. We have to go the extra mile, turn the other cheek, give our tunic along with the cloak. Yes, our vocation is a costly grace, but at the same time it's a bargain. It is a beautiful life. And together, we can make it more beautiful. Our Chrism Mass gives us an opportunity to reflect on how precious our priesthood is and to rededicate ourselves to our vocation. As always, we look to Christ, the High Priest and Good Shepherd, to gain insight into our calling. Scot said he talks of the challenges to the priesthood and the Church and that it's time to go the extra mile. Fr. Chris said the cardinal is reminding us that priests have given their life to, and they will only be authentic when they are filled with joy and giving up themselves generously. That's when they will discover their happiness as priests. Fr. Barber said it reflects [St. Ignatius of Loyola's prayer](http://www.catholicdoors.com/prayers/english3/p02709.htm): "To give and not to count the cost..."  Business as usual is not good enough for the Church. Fr. Chris said we can't be complacent. People aren't coming to us, we have to go find them. *Humility*: >Today, I would like to reflect on the Catholic Priest as prophet leader, called to continue the prophetic role of Jesus. And in particular, I wish to explore three aspects of our vocation to be prophetic leaders of Christ's people: Humility, Courage, and Involvement with the Word of God. The first characteristic of the Prophet is humility. "Learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart." The priest must imitate Jesus' humility and self-emptying, Jesus, who has taken on the form of a slave. John the Baptist, the great prophetic figure at the opening of the Gospel says, "He must increase. I must decrease." Fr. Barber said humility and courage are tied together because only a humble man will have the courage to get up in the pulpit and preach the Word of God even when he knows some people will not like what he has to say. He has to have the humility to know he answers to a higher authority. Priests could say sometimes, "He must increase and I must increase with Him," but that doesn't work. Fr. Chris said this is a particular and new tack that the cardinal is taking from the usual image. If priests are going to proclaim the truth, they will have to expect pushback. *Resist self-importance*: >Narcissism and an exaggerated sense of self importance, preclude a real conversion and prevent one from functioning as a prophet leader. Fr. Eugene Hemrick in his [Habits of a Priestly Heart](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/158459442X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=pilo0e-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399349&creativeASIN=158459442X) speaks of the need to resist the most serious foes that can take the heart out of our priesthood: resentment, careerism and clericalism. Priestly humility is the antidote to these cancers. Some day the Pope should get all the bishops and priests together in St. Peter's Square and say to us: "Repeat after me, in the words of John the Baptist: 'I am not the Messiah.'" It may come as a shocking revelation to many bishops and priest who enjoy a messianic complex. But it is very liberating to cast off this fiction. It is rooted in the same pride that makes us so competitive. Fr. Chris said it made him reflect like this was a mini-retreat, to be challenged to examine how he had to work on these things himself. The Cardinal challenged the priests to reflect during Holy Week on how they can become better priests. Scot said there often expectations of priests to function like messiahs. Fr. Barber said some priests feel like they have to be at the center of things at Mass, to entertain. But he sees more and more churches being renovated where the presider's chair is moved from the highest and most central place. *A priest who is humble...*: >A priest who is humble knows that he needs others. In the face of his own limitations, he accepts his role as a prophet leader. He knows that he is gifted in some areas and not in others. The humble priest realizes that we are interdependent, and together we can do what we cannot do alone. The humble man believes in this togetherness, being part of a team and seeking this support from his brother priests and offering it to them. The proud man aspires to be a star, a lone ranger, a messiah. Fr. Chris said it's very scriptural. The apostles were sent out by Christ, two by two, never alone. The priests work as a body for the good of others. The lone star will burn out without a connection to others. Fr. Barber said no one priest has all the qualities of Christ, but all the priests of the Church together will reflect in some way or another the necessary qualities of Christ. *Challenges of modern priesthood*: >Priests are sometimes uneasy with accepting and exercising leadership in a world that is often suspect of its leaders. The uneasiness also comes from our own personal insecurities, fear of conflict, problems of self-esteem, fear of rejection, worries about taking responsibility for difficult decisions. I always say that in Boston every decision is a dilemma. Today, the priests face new challenges: ministering in a time when the number of priests has declined and the average age has risen. Often people have high, even unrealistic expectations of priests. The consumer mentality by which priests are to provide quick, efficient and friendly service like people expect from salespersons or hotel clerks. Scot said it identifies the reasons why it's tough for priests to lead their parishes today. Fr. Barber tells seminarians their security is rooted in their call by Christ and prayer life, not by polls and popularity. That is the source of their joy and contentment. If their source is in other people, they won't be secure. Priests are often overwhelmed by their inadequacies and will sometimes have an off-day, but they are only human and have God's grace to help them. "God chose you and the people will see and love in them something they see and love in Christ." Fr. Chris said there would be no problems if people understood that God loved them. Do you know that you are loved by Christ, because if you don't know that how will you help other people discover Christ's love for themselves? Scot said the consumer mentality causes laypeople to expect priests to be service providers. That is not the identity of priests. Fr. Chris said that is exactly right. We need to rid ourselves of a country club mentality in the Church where we come and go as we feel like it. Scot said as a parent, he has to remind his children that he is not there to simply respond to their wishes, but to lead them and raise them as strong adults. Fr. Barber has known priests who couldn't preach a homily, but where great one on one and others who were vice-versa. He sees seminarians come in from the world with all its distractions, but the men who struggle with their own temptations will make great confessors. *Courage*: >Living faithfully and ministering effectively demand courage of the priest. This virtue is built up by continuous acts of courage: facing obstacles, resisting temptation, not walking away from difficult situations, making decisions, teaching the hard words of the gospel. Luckily it does not depend entirely on us. We are not [Pelagianists](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11604a.htm). Our prayer life, our priestly friendships, the spirit who anointed us in our ordination, all help us to acquire the courage we need to be priests and prophet-leaders to God's people. Fr. Barber recalled Archbishop Vigneron facing an impossible situation in a former diocese that he was confident that if the Lord wants success, He will make it happen.  Fr. Chris said priestly friendships are a great help. No priest desires conflict so when it happens, it is great to have the support of brother priests to give feedback. The Holy Spirit is with us and stays with us. Scot's favorite part of the homily is the Cardinal saying that courage is a virtue and that is built up by acts of courage. *Being a messenger of God*: >Our task is not to impart information, but to be messengers of God whose word is a two edged sword, whose Gospel brings life and meaning to people. To do that, we must learn to love the Word of God that will nurture the contemplative aspect of our vocation. Moses, the Prophet, climbs the mountain and there basks in God's presence, receives His Word, and then comes down. His face is glowing from being in God's presence. We must spend time each day with God and His Word if we are going to be God's messengers with fire in our belly and God's glow on our face. Fr. Barber said God's Word is a two-edged sword because it always has a bite to it. The role of the preacher is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Also he likes that Cardinal Sean says that your homilies must be prepared on your knees. The priest is a conduit between the Holy Spirit and people's hearts.  Fr. Chris said people can be so busy in other people's lives that they forget their own call to holiness. Scot said his dad taught him that the more you work for something, the more you receive. The work of the priest to receive more and give more is the work of prayer. *Skills of holiness*: >It is not enough for a parish priest to be personally holy. He also needs to have the skills to lead others to holiness. Fr. Ronald Knott has a good definition of Spiritual Leadership: "The ability to influence another through invitation, persuasion and example to move from where they are, to where God wants them to be, especially through the skillful use of the pulpit." He calls Catholic pulpits buried treasures waiting to be claimed. The  prophet leader has a special challenging task of reaching out to the segment of God's people who seldom frequent the sacraments or attend Mass. Fr. Knott refers to them as: "The mad and the sad; the ignored and the bored." Our motivation to accept this challenge must be our love for God and for His People. Fr. Barber said a good preacher has the ability to interpret the events and actions in people's lives through the Word of God. Don't give up, keep on striving, keep faith, and know that they are planting seeds. The priest never knows where the seed goes or when it will ever come to fruition. Fr. Chris said the priest makes a return gift of his life when he knows how much God loves him. With fewer priests and higher demands, the priest needs to know where he is being fed and that is through the Word of God. If the priest doesn't have the Word of God how will he share it with others? Scot said Cardinal Sean said in his Ash Wednesday that if we're standing still in the spiritual life, then we're falling behind. *Renewal of promises*: >At the Ordination ceremony--all the priests come forward to lay on hands, and again--all come forward to give the kiss of peace. The new priests' hands are anointed with the very chrism that this same presbyterate blessed, together with the Bishop, a few months before. All of this to indicate our unity, our oneness with Christ and with each other. And today in this Chrism Mass, we renew our priestly promises together. And it is together that we must live out this call to be the presbyterate of Boston, united to Christ, the Good Shepherd, and to our brother priests in the service of God's people. Together, in our role as priests, prophet leaders, with humility, with courage, and immersed in the Word of God. Let us make our renewal of promises, a new beginning, an opportunity to say yes again to Christ. Fr. Chris said the Cardinal is reminding the priests what they committed to on their ordination and calling them to unity within Christ. If there isn't unity, how can priests ask others to be a people of reconciliation. The priests need to be united in Christ around the Bishop around the Eucharist, then they are fraudulent. Fr. Barber said priests live that togetherness by calling each other late at night, for example, where their brother priests live alone. They give each other encouragement and hope. The bishop is the chaplain of his priests. Fr. Chris said priestly fraternity begins in the seminary. It is 10 times harder to gather priest friends in the parish when all the demands of the parish are on them. A central characteristic of St. John's is the camaraderie shared among the men. **3rd segment:** The sacred Triduum is the three days in the Church's calendar when the normal business of the Church shuts down. Fr. Chris said we are all united around the events of Christ's suffering, death and resurrection. For those three days, our parish church becomes the Holy Land where we walk with Christ. We are in the upper room on Holy Thursday and we come together in the garden as we pray before the tabernacle. On Good Friday is Calvary. At the Easter Vigil we start in the darkness of the tomb and lead to the light of Easter. By celebrating these events we too rise with Christ. Fr. Barber said no one can say that God doesn't love me when we experience the events of the Triduum. We hear the Lord's last words and his love letter to the Church in his preaching at the Last Supper. If we wear a crucifix we wear a reminder of how much He loves us. All the beautiful symbolism of the Triduum remind us of the inner mysteries of Christ. Scot said that on Good Friday the veneration of the cross brings us face to face with what Christ did for me. On Holy Saturday, the tangible act of lighting a candle and passing it on and what it means to us as faithful Catholics. Fr. Chris said he ended his homily with John 3:16 and it's the greatest love story in all the world. His vocation came to him in eighth grade as an altar server serving at all the Triduum liturgies. Fr. Barber said the veneration of the crucifix on Good Friday is a high point for him. He highly recommends the new movie ["Of Gods and Men"](http://www.sonyclassics.com/ofgodsandmen/) in which an old monk knows he's about to die for his faith and he's praying before an image of Christ. Knowing he's alone, he goes up to lay his head on Christ's side and kiss the wound in his side.