Looks in the pool.

Living with magic being a permanent part of my life is very strange. You’d think it’d be impossible to forget about it, but there are plenty of times when I’m suddenly reminded that a lot of the things around me aren’t normal. The example I’m thinking of right now is from when I was at the hot pool with the girls.

Frey casted a magic spell on me some months ago. Using the consent of my girlfriends as a condition to make the spell work, perception around me having multiple partners changed. It became… normalized. Kind of. See, that’s the thing. Reactions aren’t exactly universal.

Maybe there are too many variables for the spell to work as intended every time on everyone. Back in school nobody thought too hard about it, but you have to remember that there were rumors about me seeing Mila, Grace and Sarah at the same time way before we put the spell in place. The school was kind of ready for it, so the spell worked pretty well. The girls’ families took it well, too, and I think it’s because they all sat down and explained things properly. There was no room for confusion, so the spell did its job and made our polyamorous relationship seem like just any other relationship.

So yeah, a lot of the time people don’t react. Could also be because we probably look like any other group of friends in public, but when it’s a little more obvious that there’s something romantic going on, people do react.

We were all in the biggest pool in the hot springs area, one so big that even with 30 people in it we still had enough room to swim comfortably. The water there was lukewarm, the ‘coldest’ of the pools around. It was the first one we tried as a way to, um… test the waters.

Sorry.

Anyway, what I’m getting at is that we all went in as a group. Mila, Grace, Sarah, Alice, Noelle, Diana and I. Six outrageously sexy women in bikinis hanging out with a single guy. Eyes were on us the moment we went into the fenced pool area.

Sure, some guys were ogling the girls… Some girls were ogling me… Some guys were also ogling me… but there were also plenty of looks of bewilderment that didn’t only make me uncomfortable.

“Okay, be real with me, does this swimsuit make me look weird?” Mila asked, fixing her bikini top. It was a very classic bikini that tied in the front.

“Trying to fix it will only earn you more looks. You’re moving your boobs too much,” Sarah told her. “Besides, you look fine.”

“Then why are people staring so much?” Mila asked, shifting uncomfortably. “It’s not normally like this. Shouldn’t the spell prevent this?”

“Yeah,” Noelle said with only her head outside the water. What was funny was that she looked more offended than embarrassed. “It’s not like we’re doing anything weird! They should mind their own business!”

True. If we were bothering anyone, I’d understand, but we were literally just standing on a corner of the pool. I sighed and leaned back against the edge made of stones. We were at a spot where we all touched the floor. The water reached just below my shoulders.

“I think it might just be a bug,” I told them.

“Bug?” Diana asked, innocently looking around us to see if she spotted whatever insect was drawing the eyes of the people.

“Ah, you mean like a computer bug, right?” Alice asked with a proud smile. “Like what happened with the other spells before.”

I nodded. “These people don’t know that we’re dating. Hell, they don’t know anything about us. I think their confusion is causing interference with the spell. Like, they’re unsure how to see this, so they’re… defaulting to the more natural reaction.”

“At least, the ones that care about other people’s business are,” Grace said. ”It’s not like everyone is looking at us.” She turned to look at some of those people. Some married couples, some 20-year-old friend groups… Grace smirked. “Should we test if clearing things up fixes the bug?”

I blinked. “You want to go over to them and tell them we’re dating?”

“You know what they say about a picture and 1000 words, right?” Grace got closer to me. She very deliberately pressed her chest against mine and wrapped her arms around my neck. “If they want to stare, then let’s give them a show worth watching…”

“Grace…”

“They started it, love,” Grace said, brushing her lips against mine.

“You know, she has a point,” Sarah agreed, positioning herself behind me. She put her hands on my back and began to kiss my shoulder.

I swallowed hard. We weren’t using any Normality runes. People would notice us getting… affectionate. But that was the point, wasn’t it? And really, Frey probably needed this kind of test to fix issues with the spell, so…

I held Grace by the waist and pulled her even closer, pushing my hips against hers and sliding my tongue inside her mouth.

“Oh my. How bold.” Alice giggled.

Noelle snickered. “Oh, NOW they’re looking away.”

“Most,” Diana said. “I see some young couples still watching.”

Grace had gone deaf to it all. She pressed her body against mine, raising her leg and getting it around me as well. She sucked on my tongue like nobody was watching and drank the mix of our drool. One of her hands began to caress my chest, and I even started to feel her nipples hardening through her bikini top.

She wasn’t the only one, either. Sarah was hugging me from behind, hands on my crotch but obscured by the water and Grace’s body. She kissed the back of my neck and subtly rubbed her boob on my back from side to side.

“...Is it just me or are they getting excited?” Mila asked, now with bewilderment of her own.

“Newlyweds on their honeymoons, maybe?” Alice said.

I broke the kiss with Grace without pulling away. I still had her in my arms, still had her body against mine, and I didn’t push Sarah away, either. “Let’s… leave it here for now. Any more and we’ll get kicked out for sex in the pools.”

“But you’re not having sex,” Noelle said.

“Tell that to Sarah. She’s moments away from pulling it out of my swimsuit.”

“Sarah!” Alice gasped, laughing.

“Oof, got a little too into it.” Sarah didn’t deny it. “But you’re right. The last thing I want is to tell my parents we got kicked out for indecency. Next time we’ll take proper precautions.”

“Right.” Grace licked her lips, tasting my lingering presence on them. “Proper precautions.”

…

What DID they buy that other day? I was getting even more curious, but they wouldn’t tell me.

Well, at least the experiment got the results we expected, apparently. The people looking at us in confusion had totally lost interest. Now all that was left were disapproving looks from elderly people for our PDA and smirks and thumbs up from the younger couples.

“Let’s change pools,” I begged. This was way too embarrassing.

“I see a small one emptying up,” Mila said. “Come on, before someone else takes it! That one must be hotter.”

We soaked in the hot water for a while longer before we returned to the cabin.

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