I walked to Tholin’s feeling tired, but on top of the world.

I had cast Sexual Transference before we started making love, and I had gained four mana in an hour. One of that would be normal regeneration. But the rest was a bonus. I didn’t have Reduced Refraction down yet, and I thought I’d rather use that for sometime when we had a while to enjoy it, because supposedly it lasted for hours. Using a spell like that offset any mana gains I was getting, and I didn’t know whether it would use up more or less than I got. Given that the author of Swive Sorcery wasn’t lauding it as a way to gain mana, I assumed it was going to use up more. However, the author of that book didn’t seem to imagine threesomes between people who all cared about each other.

I’m burying the lead here. Sex with Laurel and Vixie was just plain fun. I hadn’t wanted to leave, especially when Vixie said they were going to carry on without me. But sensible Laurel insisted. Maybe she wanted some alone time with Vixie, anyway, and I wanted them to have that.

It was their thing, and they’d made me a part of it. I was grateful, even if I wanted more.

I got to poker last and discovered how fast news travels in a small town.

“So I hear you’re getting some action,” Tom said.

I glanced at Tholin, but the dwarf just shrugged. I knew he felt a little protective of Vixie, and it was part of why I liked him. It didn’t seem like I had anything to worry about from him, though.

I sat down at the table. This was going to be awkward. They all talked about their sex lives pretty freely.

“Whatever happened, it had her distracted,” Tholin said at last. “But she kept getting little smiles on her face, too. So I’m assuming it’s a good thing. Jerry?”

I smiled. “I think it’s a good thing.”

“How’s Laurel taking it?” Belias asked.

I did not say deep and hard. “Laurel is part of it.”

“Both of them?” asked Tom.

Laurel didn’t want it to be a secret. And Siniel had made sure that Vixie’s part wasn’t. “Both of them,” I said.

“At the same time?” Belias asked.

I grabbed the cards. “Okay if I deal first?”

“Sure,” Tom said. “After you answer the question.”

I sighed. “Sometimes. I’m not going to share details.”

“You didn’t use magic to –” Tholin started, and left it hang.

“No. It was their idea. Can we play poker?”

“Don’t imagine Vella would go for me starting a harem,” Belias said, Vella being his wife.

“Nor Shelly,” Tom said.

“I’m not building a harem,” I said. “It’s just the two of them.”

“Dumbledalf was quite the ladies’ man in his younger days, I hear,” Tom said.

“Stuck his dick where it didn’t belong,” Belias said. I wondered just how old Belias was, because he spoke as if he’d been around at the time, and had a grudge. The guys all looked at him.

“Not Vella,” Belias said quickly. “This was before Vella. Just that he got up to it with the married ladies.”

“BV,” Tholin said. “Or BVBJ.”

Sadly, I followed that. Before Vella, that was clear enough. So the other meant before Vella’s blowjobs, which apparently were amazing. I mean, I was glad Belias had a good sex life with his wife, and I wished him all the blowjobs he could get. I would just be fine talking about something else, even though I was thinking about Laurel and Vixie and all the things we could get up to. “So then, Texas hold’em.”

Belias groaned.

“Well, if you wanted to play draw, you should have grabbed the cards and started dealing,” I said. The first time, I’d sat back and tried to figure out the dynamic. But already I felt a part of the gang. If the sex talk was a bit uncomfortable, it also showed that they had welcomed me in their group. I supposed it was a twenty-first century American prejudice to not talk about such things.

Maybe Siniel’s blurting it out in the market wasn’t as far out as it had seemed. Still shitty, and shitty that she put that spell on her daughter in the first place. But if people in Scarletdale were more honest about sex, I approved of that, at least in theory.

I sure liked Vixie’s frankness. And Laurel, while she seemed shy, still communicated better than a lot of girls had back home. Even when I’d been married to Stacy for ten years, she couldn’t tell me what she wanted most of the time. I was going to have to get over my discomfort.

Thinking about Vixie and Laurel sure was nice.

“Uh, Jerry?” Tom said. “The bid is to you.”

Oh, right. I guess I should look at my hole cards. A queen and a four. But just a penny to stay in. I pushed forward a penny.

“Mr. Threesome is going to lose a lot of money tonight,” Tom predicted. “Hey, that’s kinda catchy. Jerry Threesome. Sounds like one of those heroes in one of those earth books. Like Captain Future.”

“Jerry Harem?” Belias said.

“My last name is Kenner.”

“What do you ken?” asked Tholin.

I groaned. “The dark and mysterious arts,” I said.

About an hour into the poker game, and after still more good-natured ribbing that took my mind off the game and cost me a fair amount of money, someone pounded on the door to Tholin’s home. “Can you get that, Merva?” Tholin yelled out.

Merva was Tholin’s wife, a rotund, curvy, matronly dwarf. Not my type, but apparently Tholin was very much in love with her. A lady in the streets and a freak in the sheets, according to him. I knew more about Merva than I wanted to.

“You’re closer,” she yelled back, which was true. Tholin’s home consisted of a living room, three bedrooms, and a kitchen. They had two kids, who were apparently in bed asleep or pretending to sleep when I got there. Merva was baking in the kitchen.

But she bustled in, anyway, before Tholin could get up. “Raise.” Tholin said, pushing some copper into the pot.

“With two sixes?” Merva asked. “Really?”

Tholin glared at her. She shrugged. “Serves you right for not getting up and getting the door.”

“Call,” Tom said quickly.

I pushed some copper into the pot. “Me too.”

Merva opened the door, and a woman I’d talked to before filled the door frame. Cassandra. She was nearly six-feet tall and built like a Valkyrie, plenty of curves and muscles, and she was wearing tight jeans and a snug black tank top that revealed a bit of cleavage.

“Cassandra!” Merva said. “Come in, come in. I’m doing some baking, you can help.”

Cassandra hugged Merva. “You know I’m not much for baking,” she said.

“What brings you by?” Merva asked.

“Dad said to come by if I was going to be out after dark, so I could walk him home, make sure he gets home safely.”

She wasn’t a dwarf or an elf, so her dad must be Tom, who was a big guy himself. Tom scowled and directed his gaze at Tholin. “I’d be protecting her. Well?”

Tholin lay down a pair of sixes.

“Ha!” Tom said, showing three nines with an ace kicker.

I had three queens, but I didn’t like something in Tholin’s expression. “What’s the rest of it?” I asked.

He put down the rest of his hand. Three fours, making a full house.

I threw my three queens on the table and looked at Merva.

Merva shrugged at me, smiling. “I didn’t lie,” she said. “What, you thought I wasn’t on his side?”

We all laughed, except Tom. He redirected. “How’d your date go?” he asked Cassandra. “He didn’t try anything, did he?”

“If he did, I would have broken his arm,” Cassanda said. “He’s intact. Just dull. Boys my age are so immature.”

“Cassandra’s twenty-six,” Tom said.

“Twenty-nine, Dad,” Cassandra corrected.

“Come on, dear,” Merva said, putting her arm around Cassandra’s waist and tugging her toward the kitchen.

“Better than watching them play cards,” Cassandra said. “Unless you all want a fifth?”

“Nope,” Tom said quickly.

Cassandra rolled her eyes and then went with Merva.

“You don’t find her intimidating, do you, Jerry?” Tom asked.

“Who, me? No.” I didn’t, actually. She was a strong woman, and I didn’t doubt she meant it about breaking someone’s arm, but I didn’t get the impression she engaged in random violence.

“Good looking woman, right?” Tom asked.

“Well, sure.” One didn’t tell a dad his daughter wasn’t a beauty, and anyway, she was. But one didn’t ogle, either. I liked my arms in the original condition.

“If it doesn’t pan out with Laurel and Vixie, I’d be happy to help you two get better acquainted.”

Ah. I wondered if Tom had told her to come by Tholin’s after her date precisely so that we’d get a good look at each other. I shrugged at him. A harem would give me access to more mana, just theoretically. But I couldn’t see it happening, and I wasn’t going to explore anything like that right now.

Also, Cassandra was a lot younger than me, although not as much so than Laurel. “I’m sure she’ll find someone,” I said. “Your daughter is a very attractive woman.”

“Guys are scared of her,” Tom said. “And she’s awful picky. She’s going to end up an old maid if she isn’t careful.”

“She’s twenty-nine.”

Tom sighed. “Me and Shelly got hitched at nineteen.”

Tholin shrugged. “Merva and I married at twenty. We just waited a while to start a family.”

Belias just shook his head. “Humans. Dwarves.”

“Time ticks away at us all,” Tholin said. “Slower for some, perhaps.”

“So, do most people in Scarletdale – most humans, anyway, get married young and start having kids?”

“What’s young? Can’t get married until you’re eighteen, that’s the law for everyone,” Tom said.

“Eighteen is young. Twenty-two is pretty young, where I came from. Not at all unheard of. I don’t know what the average is. Twenty-five? I was twenty-three when I got married the first time, and I ended up regretting it.”

“So you don’t think Cassandra is too old? For you, I mean?” Tom asked.

“I think she might be too young,” I said honestly. But no, twenty-nine was within what I normally thought of as my dating range. My age, divided by two, plus seven, was twenty-seven. “But anyway, I’m busy figuring out what’s going on with Vixie and Laurel right now.”

“Too young? She is older than Laurel,” Tom said.

Yeah, Laurel did not follow the divide by two plus seven rule. It niggled at me, but the situation wasn’t the normal one, no matter what. Laurel was already in a relationship with Vixie. “Not looking,” I said. “At least for now.” I felt guilty about adding that last part, but at the same time, did I believe that a relationship that involved me and two girls was going to last for a lifetime? I did not. No one could be that lucky. Especially me. I’d had trouble enough with one.

“Well. Fine. Tell me you’ll keep her in mind.”

“Okay.” Why not? She was hot. I’d have to get to know her for anything to happen, though, and I as I said I was busy with other things. I was old enough not to think with my dick.

Tom was being weird. But yeah, through much of human history twenty-nine was considered pretty old to be an unmarried woman. Scarletdale’s culture was not modern American culture, despite the imported blue jeans and tank tops. There were some ways I liked that, and some ways I didn’t.

We wrapped up the poker game and went our separate ways. Belias lived in the opposite direction, so he left with Tom and Cassandra, while I walked alone to my place.

I got home and I didn’t hear Laurel and Vixie, so I assumed they were asleep in their bed. I was half right; they were asleep in my bed.

They were also naked.

I debated for a moment leaving my clothes on, or at least my underwear. But they had fallen asleep in my bed knowing I’d come back to them.

I stripped off as quietly as I could. There was more space next to Vixie, who was kind of draped over Laurel, her hand all the way on the woman’s far shoulder, so I got in on that side. I thought the bed could accommodate three pretty nicely, actually, but they were a bit too-centered, and I had to spoon Vixie to fit.

I have a tough life.

She woke up a little, pushed her ass back into me, and then fell back asleep.

A hard life, too. I had no complaints. The shield still remained a problem, but I could solve it, with the help of these two wonderful women.