DemonRose

Wow! so this chapter got a whole lot deeper than I was expecting it too with a bit of lover's strife and some self-discovery. I'm sure many of you were expecting a sexy scene after the way the last chapter ended, and that was what I was planning on too, but it went off in a whole other direction. That's not to say it won't go back to sexy, but I decided to break this chapter off before that happens. This will allow me to post this today and give the next one the attention is is due. It will also mean Part 2 can be skipped entirely by those who aren't comfortable with the action that will take place. 

"Hang on," Crystal said. "What exactly do you mean? I know I don't speak for everyone, but I'm not comfortable with an orgy."

I nodded and glanced at Ellie to make sure she saw my support for Crystal's statement.

River, who was definitely taking the lead for their little group, said, "No, not an orgy. It would be one-on-one. Each of us has our preferences. My companions prefer women. You might say, I'm the hetro of the group." The knowing glance she gave her friends made me wonder what gender she'd been before Katie stepped in. "I was hoping that maybe you'd be interested, Roger?"

"Well." The otter-man looked taken aback, but quickly smiled. "I can't say I have a horse in this race. I have no reason to go this valley and neither does any in my party." He cleared his throat in an effort to smooth out his voice. "That said, I am interested."

"Great! You won't be disappointed."

Right then, a serving woman came by the table. She had black braids and the biggest chest I'd ever seen in my life, pre or post Feronia. She approached, Crystal and said, "I'm Cora. I was told you wanted to drink my milk." She gestured to her bosom.

"What? No!" Crystal turned to us. "This is some misunderstand , I would never. I'm not ... ah, fuck it." She got up and left with the serving woman.

This elicited smiles of amusement from everyone except Trogia, who muttered, "Son-of-a-bitch."

When the table settled down, River got back to business and said, "Now Cali, who was it you were wanting?"

Cali, the felinoid, was a bit shorter than Mack and a bit curvier. A black, silk robe (much like Yarrow's) barely contained her D-cups and her as cheeks showed below the hem like two slivers of new-moons. Her eyes were wide and yellow and her hair and fur was a tawny brown.

Her face lit up with a bright devilish smile. "I was hoping Mack here would take a tumble with me."

"Hell no! Not unless your hiding a dick under that robe." Sue seemed about to say something but slammed her mouth shut before the words came out.

I would have thought Trogia would have used the opportunity to laugh at Mack or make some rude remark, but he just took a long swig of beer and grumbled, "Son-of-a-bitch. You've got to be fucking shitting me." Which I took to mean, he was upset none of them were interested in him.

Cali pleaded to Mack, "Aw, come on. Don't be like that. It'll be fun."

"I haven't drank even half enough alcohol to fall into bed with a girl. If you're after another felinoid, you should go with Sue."

Cali frowned. "Sorry, Sue, no offense but you're not my type. "

"That's okay. I'm actually only interested in one person right now."

Mack rolled her eyes.

Cali sighed. "All right. How about Blossom then?"

"What?" slipped from my mouth as my head whip-lashed toward her.

"No fair," Amber cried. "I was going to ask for her."

"Well, I asked first, so I get her."

"Nobody gets me. I'm in a relationship."

They didn't seem to hear, and Amber argued, "Why don't you go with Yarrow. She's attractive and she's more your size."

Cali chewed on this. She didn't seem entirely happy shifting gears but grudgingly nodded in agreement to her friend. "How about it, Yarrow?"

It would seem cliche to say she looked like a deer in the headlights, but yeah, her eyes were wide and her face was still as stone. Eventually, she blinked a couple of times before letting out a long breath. "I suppose that would be alright if it was a three-some with my boyfriend. If that's okay with you?" she asked Rick.

He looked as stunned as she had been and said, "I ... well, yeah. I mean, sure. If you want to. Yeah."

Cali said, "Sorry. The whole male genitalia thing is a turn off for me. I guess it's you and me Blossom."

"I said, I'm in a—" But before I could finish, Ellie cut me off.

"Can I have a word alone with my friend?" she said to them, then dragged my off to a quiet part of the bar.

"Look, I have no intention of cheating on you," I said sure she was about to berate me for being part of this lewd deal. Even if It hadn't been my choice.

"We should at least consider it." Was she serious? "How else will we get this information. I don't want to see you get cursed because we can't find this place in time."

"I'll be fine. This isn't worth it. We'll meet someone else who can give us the location. Or we can offer these mages some money. They can't be that sex obsessed."

"Yes, they can," she said. "You're just forgetting because we've done it so often that we're finally thinking clearly again. If it had been a few days since you'd gotten off, you wouldn't be so quick to turn down either of their offers."

"I just don't understand why me." I said, stamping my foot. Which I felt really embarrassed about the second after I did it.

"You're really adorable, you know that? It's because your the hottest of the group. Hell, your the most gorgeous person in this entire inn."

I flashed with gratification and embarrassment, feeling a bit gooey inside hearing her say that. When I recovered myself, I said, "And I think you're they most beautiful girl I've ever met."

"No." she said, being terribly serious. "What I meant is, you have a Presence of 15. Don't look disappointed, I do find you incredibly beautiful and I count myself lucky to be with you. But, you have to understand on a scale of 1 to 16, you are a 15. That's better than being a 9 out of 10. You're going to get you some attention because of it."

"Still, that doesn't mean I'm happy to be a bargaining-chip in some sick trade. I'm sure if you were asked to go with them, you'd feel the same way."

Ellie didn't respond. She just looked pointedly at her bare, little feet.

I gasped. "You want to have sex with them!"

She rubbed a toe against the floor. "Not want to. But willing to."

I gasped again. "But ... but ... us!" I felt like I was on the verge of a panic attack. My hands and feet had gone cold and tingly.

She sighed and looked up, taking me by the hand. "I want you to listen to me. I mean, really listen. Because you might not like what I'm saying, but I'm being honest here. And honesty should be respected even if you don't like it. I love that we've found each other in this big crazy—well, not just crazy but truly fucked-up—world. I like being with you and I don't want it to end. But I also think that we shouldn't be so exclusive."

"You what?!?"

"Please, let me finish. We have the chance in this game to be people we could never be in real life. Try things we could never try. Why should we limit ourselves by conventions of a world we're no longer in."

I pulled my hand from hers. "How long have you felt this way?"

"Well, since forever, I guess. I never planned for our relationship to be monogamous. It's just that when it was the eight of us, we were the only two that fit. Crystal has been my friend forever and having sex with her would have made things really awkward. Yarrow and Rick were always going off together, and I always thought they were kind of traditional. (Although I guess I was wrong about that.) And the others were either straight or didn't interest me. But now that we're meeting other people ... Look, before these others showed up, I was thinking about sleeping with Tania, unless you wanted to make it a threesome." She looked at me and I could feel her hopeful eyes urging me toward agreeing with her.

I had to turn around and look at something else. "I ... can't ... even ..." My mouth tried to talk but my brain refused to feed it with words.

"I'm sorry." Her voice was low and I could barely hear her. "I didn't mean to upset you. I thought since you'd been a guy before, you'd be more open to ... um ... spreading your love around."

"Yeah, well maybe I wasn't really a—" I cut myself off, more than a little shocked by the words that were about to roll out. I started over, "Maybe I wasn't clear on our relationship just being one of convenience. Go screw whoever you want to."

This got several heads swiveling in our directions.

"What we have is more than that. But it could be even more. Think about it like this: every time we go off with other people or when we bring them to bed with us, we're adding a new layer to our relationship. We're adding to our joint experiences and sharing something new with each other." When I didn't react or look at her, she said, "Or think about it like this: what happens when your time of the year comes and you're in an iron-clad monogamous relationship. How will the other person feel as you go chasing after everyone with a pulse."

I spun to face her, "But that's not me. That's not who I am!"

"It will be. And in a way, it already is. Haven't you read the section on Sprites in the archive? Doesn't matter what if they're wood or water, they're all about free love. They're practically the hippies of Feronia."

"But that's not me."

"Are you sure about that? We're all taking on the traits of our characters. Seriously, read the species descriptions and see how well everyone matches them. Are you sure you're not just forcing yourself to behave the way you think you should?"

"No," I said, sounding pretty mopey. 

But why was I being so possessive? We'd only known each other a few days? I know I've had girlfriends call me "clingy" in the past. But that was after being together for months. And even then, would I have turned down the chance to sleep with someone else, if they'd given me a pass to do so? Well, probably, but only because I'd have been too self-conscious about it. And yeah, even with being fully satisfied in the sex department, when the two mage girls said they wanted me I felt a thrill run through me. Had I only be pretending to be the person I thought Ellie wanted me to be? I knew I did a fair amount of pretending IRL. I was always the smiling pro-corporate face when I walked into a training room at work. The slightly goth, slightly artsy guy with my friends. The perfect nerd when getting together with one of me RPG groups. And the considerate, sensitive boyfriend on the rare occasions I had a girlfriend. Who was the real me?

I sighed. "You go and have fun. And I don't mean that in a passive aggressive way. This whole thing is my problem not yours. So, yeah, I'll see you in the morning."

"And what?" she said. "You're going to go to the communal room and cry yourself to sleep?"

"The game doesn't really work that way. It just a flip of the switch, remember?"

"Well, it's you they want, remember?" She guided me to face the table where are friends and the mages were drinking and talking. And waiting impatiently for us to return. "There's two attractive women who want to pleasure you tonight. You can pick whichever you want, and I'll be the consolation prize for the other one. Or you can stipulate you want to make it a threesome with me. I'm sure you could charm them into that."

"And what if I have a threesome with them and leave you out?" I tried to make it sound jokey, but my voice was too unsteady to pull it off and I probably sounded like I was about to puke.

"Well, then I'm sure you'll have a memorable night. And I'll see if Tania wants some company. Or ..." She gave me a wicked look. "We could see if we can get them into a foursome."

I gulped.

* * *

When we got back to the table, everyone was looking at us unexpectedly, which made me want to turn around and run. But Ellie's firm hand against the small of my back kept me there.

"So?" Amber said with a wide pleading grin.

Cali said with an excess of confidence, "She obviously want's to go cat." Then directly to me, she added, "You won't want to go back."

"Actually, we have a counter proposal." Their eyes narrowed questioningly. I took a deep breath and worked up my nerve. "The two of us are a package deal." From the way their eyes brightened, this wouldn't be a problem for either of them, but they hadn't heard the whole thing yet. "And either you both join us or the deals off."

Cali and Amber looked at each other with sudden horror. 

From his corner of the table, Trogia muttered, "Son-of-a-bitch."

Ellie said, "You two don't have to do anything together. But you each have to be with both of us."

"I can live with that," Cali said hesitantly, watching her friend's face for a reaction.

Very slowly, Amber said, "Sure."