Beauties and Beasts

Chapter 29: brought to you by Orson Ramsey

They make soap and a discovery about the process, leopard vs wolf over a packet of fruit, chopsticks are carved and Orson wins a cook-off. Also Shay gets a house and a crisis. Tonight, hug your bottle of conditioner, for you do not know what it means to you until it is gone. Maybe have some candlelight while you do it.

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Parker looked outside and sniffed. His tail twitched as though trying to curl around Shay, but hung uselessly behind him. After being thoroughly thrashed by Ryan yesterday, he had to take it easy. "I think it's going to rain soon."

"Oh good!" Shay walked behind him to examine the sky. "We could use rain."

"Not a sprinkle, but a rainstorm." He smiled and patted her head. "The rainstorm season!"

"You seem weirdly happy about that. Any particular reason?" Shay didn't trust the lecherous look in his eyes, or how he touched her like she belonged to him. He was lucky Ryan had gone hunting and Curtis was hunting... for houses. Probably why he'd agreed to stay home. His two stripes stood out in stark contrast to his tan skin, a reminder of how far behind the other males he was.

"The rainstorm season is the peak of a female's estrous cycle. It's the season for breeding. I..."

"Time to add the fat!" Neara called.

Shay headed towards the fire where Neara brandished a large pot filled with meat drippings they'd carefully drained through their old shirts. They thought about using the mountain of cotton Winston had gathered earlier, but decided the fiber in their modern clothes would be a more effective strainer. Beside her stood a bamboo tube of that weird stick-oil. Winston stayed up half the night crushing sticks and letting the oil seep into the tube. It was a task he accepted no help for, although Parker was the only one who offered in the first place.

"So which bowl is going to have the animal and which one should have the plant?" She gestured to the two largest basins in the house, each surrounded by five smaller bowls.

"Just pick one and go." Shay stirred the lye, cautious about the open fumes. "I just know we need to whisk it quickly so the fats dissolve in the lye."

"Yeah, the whisks Parker made are by the bowls." Neara, with her extensive knowledge from the Townsends YouTube channel, had helped him form five whisks; two for the soap-making and the rest for cooking.

"Ok. I'm going to pour in the lye now." Shay grasped the sides of the stone bowl between thick mitts made of her jeans. Curtis had sewn them for her after she'd requested something to help her with hot things. He'd protested until she pointed out he wouldn't always be there when she needed to cook and, eager to please, he'd made quick work of them.

The thin yellow liquid splashed around the sides and Shay slowed her pouring speed. If she spilled it everywhere, it could eat through the ground and they didn't exactly have vinegar around to neutralize it. Careful to avoid her hands, she dipped the smaller bowls into the solution to fill them halfway.

Neara moved the animal and plant fats closer. "So, plants on the left and animal on the right?"

"Sure. We also have to measure it using these bark tubes; that way we'll get a clear estimate. They're all about the same size, so we can use them for measuring cups."

Parker sat by the window and cocked his head. His nose wrinkled and his eyes squinted against the caustic smell. "It smells so harsh! I'm not sure I want you to smell like this..."

"It won't smell like this when we're done." Shay said over her shoulder before she turned to Neara. "Ok, so ¼ of a tube in the first one, and we'll increase the amounts until it's a full tube, or at least a full bowl. That will make it half and half."