Practicing

This story is pure fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. All characters are over the age of 18.

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Ben closed his eyes and slipped the ring onto his right hand middle finger. The base of the gem contacted his finger and he felt more than saw a brilliant green flash.

When he next opened his eyes he was in darkness. For a moment he was confused and a little more than a bit scared but he quickly came to his senses and fumbled in the darkness for his torch.

He flicked it on... no, it was already on. "Shit" he said, "should have expected that". It was burned out. It took him a moment to find his bag with the spare batteries. As he replaced the batteries he wondered how long he'd been out. With a dead torch he figured at least a few hours.

With light restored he checked his cell phone, it too was dead.

He was disgusted, "Damn it, fine then, old reliable it is." He reached underneath his shirt and pulled out his grandfather's old miniature pocket watch. He kept it around his neck as a keep sake.

He saw the time. Then he checked to see if the second hand was still moving. Just as it had for over 100 years it was jerking along in it's steady reliable way. It hadn't been a few hours. He sat confused. The time was 5:15 pm... of the same day, so why were batteries dead?

Almost without another thought he just knew the reason was that the pocket watch was against his skin where as the others were not. Direct contact with him had allowed it to maintain what amounted to "ring time."

Ben glanced down at the ring on his finger. The stone had transformed into a gem. He took it off to examine it. The gem was about the size of a 3 carat diamond, it was uncut but had what appeared to be a beautiful natural faceted surface. It looked very much like a dimly glowing emerald. It was mounted in a beautifully engraved silver ring. The gem was criss-crossed by tiny strands of silver, almost like a net. The inside of the ring, just under the gem, was open. Ben turned and looked into the base of the ring and saw that the opening allowed the ring to touch the wearer's finger and that the stone would turn in place with little clicks holding it in various positions.

He reasoned that he needed a lot more information so he carefully put it back into the little box. Then he gathered up Leonardo's book, pocketed the little box with the ring and headed out off the site.

He emerged into what by the time on his packet watch should have been fading daylight.

The ladder he climbed up faced west. He should have been facing the setting sun. Instead he found himself looking over his shoulder at a rising sun.

Looking both ways several times he wound up mouthing the words, "What the FUCK?!"

The confusion and another feeling made him completely overlook the fact that the walk up the slope and climb out of the trench, which usually left him a bit winded, left him feeling invigorated and quite alert, a bit confused, and... yes, there it was. He felt horny, like he needed to have sex.

In the morning light Ben briskly walked the mile to the car park and drove back to the B&B. He managed to avoid Mary, the woman who ran the place. She glanced up and flashed her amazing smiled at him as he ascended the stairs.

Mary thought him gliding past without so much as a "hello" was very odd indeed, she'd have to ask him about that later. He was always such a friendly and comfortable gentleman guest of the bed and breakfast. She'd grown very fond of him over the almost 5 months he'd been a lodger. Very fond of him indeed. During the long periods her husband was gone they'd sit and talk, sometimes far into the evening.

She admired his derriere as he climbed the stairs, "Looking more and more fit" and then caught herself and felt a bit like a foolish little girl... she closed out her thoughts on the matter with, "but he sure is an attractive nice young man, if only I were younger... "

Ben placed the box on the table and stood considering it for a moment or two. He felt a sudden shiver and headed into the shower to wash off, he thought to himself, "what, a day or two?" of grime. Being your typical young virile guy he masterbated a few times each week, usually in the shower. Uncharacteristically, by the time he had his clothes off his cock was already hard, very hard, and his balls felt just like they did right before he would cum. The water had barely started flowing when he nearly growled as he grabbed his cock and began to stroke. His finger tips could just touch his thumb and with each stroke he felt like he was ready to erupt... but didn't. The feeling of orgasm plateaued and just stayed on the precipice of orgasm.

"GOD! FUCK!" he whispered to himself and squeezed his cock hard. At that moment he realized his fingers weren't touching his thumb any more. He looked down and was astonished to see there had to be three inches between his index finger and thumb now. His cock had at least tripled in size.

The gem in the ring no longer glowed green. It gave off a light pink and was pulsating with his strokes.

"Wait," Ben paused. It took some effort and will to let go of his cock and look at the ring. He couldn't recall putting it back on.

His balls felt ready to erupt but he fought the urge to go back to masterbating. Mindless to the water, he stepped out and moved to the long floor mirror.

His first thought was, "What the hell?!" His cock had grown several sizes in length and girth, "that's a God damned horse cock," he said out loud.

Compared to what it had been, his cock was enormous.Quickly grabbing a measuring tape from his dig kit. He fumbled as he measured his cock. Then measured again. His cock measured at 36cm (about 13.5 inches) long and 21cm (8.5 inches) around.

In disbelief he looked at himself in the mirror. "FUCK!" he said out loud and then saw his balls. He quickly turned for a better look. His mouth was agape. His balls were hanging low and, over all, matched his cock in size.

Ben lifted his cock and stroked the head. He grinned a devilish grin and went back to the shower to stroke again. His orgasm was almost on command and it wasn't a typical orgasm by any means. He felt his balls contract and his ass cheeks clench just as his hips jerked forward and he felt an eruption begin, spurt after spurt he felt... but there wasn't any tangible evidence of it.

In the midst of the mind numbing cock explosion he saw that nothing was coming out of his cock.Even while he could feel himself gushing spurt after spurt. It was the most physically intense orgasm he'd ever experienced but nothing was produced.

His mind was searching for answers as he dried himself off. He carefully slipped off the ring, placed it, again, in the box, sat down naked at the table. He glanced down at his cock and was surprised to see it all back to normal size. That puzzled him as he began to read Leonardo's book from the beginning.

He spent several days in deep reading and had to pause to repeatedly shoo Mary away. During their shared meals and several times a day she'd ask if he were alright. Ben explained it away as research on his dig. In fact, he'd been studying and taking notes so he had a better grasp of the rings powers.

He learned that it could, COULD mind you, control every aspect of ones life and had incredibly varied powers. Leonardo wrote that he'd been discovering new powers right up until his sealing up the box in the wall. Leonard deduced that after a host's death, it imprinted on the next person or maybe sentient being to touch it. His experiences revealed the ring and wearer had a kind of symbiotic relationship.

As for why the gem worked only for him, Leonardo's understanding of this aspect was limited but he believed the ring only "worked" and stayed that way until, or as long as it was having it's "needs" met, meaning providing emotion, or until they died. Early on Kothar had nearly lost the gem when he'd resisted it and not fulfilled it's needs. Not only was that frightening it was also a very painful lesson.

To others the gem would look like a worthless but attractive stone. But to the gem bearer it was a beautiful green gem most of the time. During it's "recharging" it would glow shades of red and pulsate. The gem got its energy from emotions, the stronger the emotion the better. At first Kothar thought hate and violence was best and this was effective for nearly 1,000 years. The gem had optimized his physiology to be a warrior and he was known as Golyat by the Cannanites and Goliath by their enemies, the Hebrews. Killing on the battle field became the recharge method of choice until he got a stone in the forehead from one particularly annoying Hebrew kid who refused to close for one on one combat.

After that embarrassment he decided to distance himself from combat and work in the politics of conflict, that is until one particularly grizzly day in Sicily broke him of that. One of his manipulated influences erupted in war and his identity (Archimedes) "died" during the destruction of Syrakousai (or Syracuse), actually he just used one of the gem's attibutes to get away and vanish. Although effective his conscience and the loss of so many innocents wouldn't allow him to use violence again. He had settled on love or more accurately passion, it was safer, but only barely. Passion is strongest during sex and orgasm. Passion wound up being not as lasting a source resulting normally in a monthly charge. The gem ensured your partner or partners achieved their height of passion through pheromones and by improving the gem bearers overall health, stamina, and physical attributes in the sex organ arena.

As long as it was in direct contact with your skin, aging virtually stopped. There didn't appear to be any deleterious effects.

It enhanced perception and understanding making even the most complex problems intuitive. This had it's limitations in that it was constrained by "current" technological advancement and knowledge. It's not like he would just suddenly know how to build himself an inter-stellar space ship. But, if given appropriate stimulus, sudden advancements were, and had been possible.

If the gem were turned in its ring in certain forward and backward sequences, time would essentially back up in jumps. Ben tested this and found each jump looked like the world rewinding itself with him as a spectator until the rewind was complete. Then he'd find himself exactly where he was at the beginning, however he had full knowledge of the previous experience. Each time relived was exactly 34.5 minutes and one appeared to be able to go back 10 jumps or about 5.75 hours. One turned the stone the number of jumps you wanted and then pressed the stone into it's setting. Then you could watch time reverse itself. A REALLY odd feeling. This explained how Leonardo could seemingly come up with exact working models with no prior testing. He could test them over and over again and erase failures by using the gem.

The gem appeared, let me stress that, appeared to freeze time. This one was dangerous because time wasn't actually frozen, it was greatly slowed. Or to put it another way, your physiology was greatly increased, with commensurate impact on your life time. Simply put, what appeared to be an hour of your time would actually be a week or two of normal time. Leonardo reasoned one could burn out quickly if used a lot, he had to agree. Leonardo rarely used this because other ring attributes were nearly as useful. A factor in this was voluntary and involuntary physiology. The voluntary would be essentially frozen while most involuntary physiology would continue. Such as heart beat, breathing, sweating etc.

So, there you have that. To ensure maximum benefit to itself the gem would temporarily alter the host physically and endowing a great control as well. He would find out exactly what that meant in the very near future.

Then there was the overall physical side of which Ben was becoming aware. The gem enhanced a person's physical strength, stamina and furthermore, physique. This prolonged the owners life which in turn allowed more emotion to be absorbed. Essentially, the healthier the gem wearer, the more the gem benefited.

It was quite the little parasite he'd found.

There were two particular powers of the gem which seemed incredulous and which he read over and over again to ensure he understood.

First was the ability to make the wearer invisible. The duration wasn't long, it equaled the time step of 23 minutes but could be reset after 30 seconds. So, invisible for 23 minutes, visible for 30 seconds, and invisible again for 23 minutes. Leonardo had decided the gem acted as a light parting prism so that the wearer was essentially standing in a void as light bent around the wearer. It had a similar effect on sound where the wearer could move around and not be heard.

The first time he tried it he watched himself in the mirror in his room. He shimmered and disappeared. Then Ben walked down stairs and right past Mary. She didn't notice him at all. He even jiggled a lamp to see how she'd react. She looked right at the lamp, then looked around the room before she returned to her ledger.

The second ability took a long time for Leonardo to realize existed and decades to master. It was the ability to influence a person's mind. What you did was up to you. One thing you could do almost made him laugh because it reminded him of the "these aren't the droids you're looking for" scene from Star Wars. It was to be able to fog up a person's mind to act as you wanted them to, even if completely out of character or not see something which might otherwise be obvious. Push a bit harder and you could observe what the subject was doing, actually see and feel as if you were there. If the subject were right, you could take complete control of their actions without them ever realizing they themselves weren't in full control. This too had it's limitation by proximity. Leonardo usually had to be within ~3000

bracio or 180 meters of the person, but this was dependent upon the individual being controlled. The stronger the mind, the shorter the distance. Leonardo had used the powers to stay ahead of both enemies and friends and usually it served him well. His writings revealed his hatred of the Roman Emperor Didius Julianus because he was an evil prat who had achieved the position through buying the Praetorian Guard off. He was able to make him so annoy the Senate they eventually ordered his execution.

Ben laughed out loud when he read of this power. Leonardo had been a well known, well... a ladies man to put it politely. Given the depictions of him he'd always wondered just how Leonardo did it, is certainly wasn't because of his good looks. "Story's out of the bag old man," he laughed to himself again.

The final chapter of the book was dedicated to morality. Leonardo stressed the temptations of abusing the gems powers were great and a certain measure of control had to be exerted over the gem itself. Furthermore, he'd quickly learned that establishing a "code of conduct" was essential for him. He set limits, boundaries which he swore never to exceed... with the rare exception of course.

After 10 days Ben returned to the dig site and concentrated on the workshop's immediate area before beginning to work down the 2 passages, one on the left and one on the right as you came into the workshop. He found each 20 meter passage had alcoves on each side, each contained something Leonardo was working on or conceptualizing. At the end of the central passage was a set of rock cut stairs which gradually ascended into darkness.

It was about three weeks into his exploration of the workshop that he began to toy with the gem's powers. His first experiments were with Charlotte. Since she would come to join him for lunch daily he used her punctuality as the base for experimenting. Since manipulation of the gem was more manual than cerebral, he decided to carefully start with those aspects. Time stop, forward, backward, invisibility, all appeared to work.

It was during one of the invisibility tries that it first occurred to him that he might "abuse, no... that wasn't the right word." he thought to himself, "exploit, yes... he might exploit some of the gems powers." He stood there in the shimmering light of invisibility watching Charlotte approach the site. She was wearing a knee length day dress with a sweater over the top. When she got to where they usually ate she sat down the lunch bag and bent over to cast out a blanket. That's when the wind caught her dress just right and flipped it up over her back exposing her butt. Ben was standing a few meters away and in a perfect viewing position.

Charlotte reached around to smooth it down, Ben felt a surge through his loins and thought to himself, "God, I'd fuck that in a moment."

She jerked up and turned around, her left hand holding her skirt firmly to her backsides and said, "OI! You will not!" She looked around. Ben could sense her embarrassment turn to anger which then turned to confusion when she didn't see anyone. "Hello? Ben, where are you now?" she with a slightly raised voice. On a lark he reached out with his mind and attempted to place a suggestion in her mind.

A little smile came over her face and she almost whispered, "...that might just be pleasant." He'd planted the seed only time would tell if it sprung roots.

With her back turned he hopped down into the hole and turned the gem. The world shimmered and then snapped into focus. "Hello beautiful!" he said as he climbed out of the hole, "dinner already is it?"

"Yes it is... um, were you here just a minute ago. I thought I'd heard something." She said cautiously.

Ben put on a puzzled look as he sat down on the blanket, "Heard something? No love, it wasn't me I was in the torture pit. Why, what did you hear?"

Charlotte dug into the bag and handed him a pasty, "I thought it was a voice, but maybe not."

Ben's eyes drifted down her legs as he bit in the pasty.An unconscious thought crossed his mind, "Damn she has fine legs" which was accompanied by the mental image of them wrapped around his neck as his tongue probed deeply into her pussy.

"OI! What's that?" she said as she quickly looked up at him.

Ben chewed quickly, "What's what love?"

He could feel her confusion. She was hearing something but it couldn't have been him because he had a mouthful of pasty at the time.

Ben continued to eat in silence.

When they were finished with lunch Ben looked at her and said, "You know you really don't need a sweater on out here. It's a lovely day."

She looked up at the sky, "Yes, it really is lovely today. The sweater is because of our Cornish weather, fickle it is. Well, that and I don't want you getting any ideas." Which all sounded perfectly reasonable except that her actions didn't match her words. As she spoke she was taking the sweater off.

That little bit of suggestion and off came the sweater. "Interesting, VERY interesting."

Ben got lost in his thoughts and was jolted back to reality by Charlotte saying, "OI! I said I'll be going back now."

"Right, sorry I drifted off there."

He watched her walk away and had to catch his thoughts. "No, she's a virgin and too connected to me and this site. Can't take that risk". Just then his evil shoulder devil whispered in his ear, "Do the deed and then just rewind time you knob."

Ben began wearing the ring full time and spent the next six weeks diligently going over every square inch of the workshop. He began to intuitively know what everything was. He even caught himself casually opening an otherwise secret entrance, he just knew it was there. It led to other small vaults containing items from the ages and eventually disappearing up that stone stair case.