Important Conversations

Kevin opened his eyes and felt a rush of relief when he realized that he was alone. He’d half expected to find Hwa still there, with equal chances that she’d be pissed or demanding that he provide yet more ‘essence’ for her.

After the night before, he wasn’t even sure which he would have preferred. As intimidating as the gorgeous Korean woman could be, in some ways having her standing over him with her claws out would have been better than finding her attached to his groin yet again.

As soon as they’d formed their bargain, Hwa had been insatiable. That she’d immediately moved into a second blowjob—aggressive and demanding until he’d filled her mouth—hadn’t been a surprise.

That she’d demanded a third as soon as the giggles Reap Essence brought on started to fade had been. Kevin had thought things would end there, but the busty beauty managed to coax him into a fourth erection and nursed it for what felt like an hour. He’d tried to explain that as a nearly forty-year-old man, he’d probably already reached his limit for the night, but Hwa hadn’t been satisfied until she’d pushed him, gasping, into his fourth eruption of the evening.

He wasn’t sure which of the two of them had passed out first after that, but Kevin suspected that it had been him. With as demanding as she’d been the night before, he wouldn’t have been surprised to wake and find Hwa attached to him at the groin, but the bed was empty and cool. A quick look around revealed no sign that she’d been there recently—though the bondage furniture still visible in the corner of the room stood as evidence of his actions the day before.

He’d succeeded at what he’d set out to do, now he just had to live with the consequences.

Kevin rose and stretched, pleasantly surprised at how easily his body moved. At thirty seven, he was used to some lingering soreness in the morning after a day of exertions and yesterday had certainly been that. Now, though, he could feel House Rule at work.

Being too stiff to move didn’t suit Lily’s desired narrative, so the magic was already working to soothe and restore him to full health.

Probably why I was able to keep up with Hwa as long as I did, too. Four times in a night is more than I thought I’d ever manage again.

Still, the corner of his mouth quirked into a slight smile as he went to wash and get dressed. The show might be a nightmare of ethical conundrums and infringements of free will, but hey—at least my back doesn’t hurt.

When Kevin got to The Long Rest for breakfast, he was a little surprised to discover the entire party already there. The last several days, by the time he arrived at the inn to eat at least some of the women Lily had **** into her farce of a fantasy adventure were out and about in the city somewhere.

This morning, Stheno sat beside Elsie, the two women in a conversation so deep they didn’t immediately notice him. Hwa’s face was a porcelain mask, devoid of emotion, but Kevin caught the way her eyes flicked down towards his crotch before she tore them away to stare blankly into the crowd.

Tess and Abby were so close the latter was practically in her sister’s lap. They’d been talking about something when he arrived, but both selkies turned to focus on their food as soon as they caught sight of Kevin.

Hazel was not seated at the main table with the rest of the party, but had joined the four elves nearby. Summer offered him an enthusiastic smile and a wave, while Autumn offered a shy nod of her head, but the disciples otherwise remained focused on their druid grove mother.

Kevin caught the word ‘commune’ at the edge of his hearing, but decided to let the nymph carry on without interruption. The final two members of the party—Penny and Blue—kept an open chair between them that he angled for instead. No more than a minute or two later, one of the omnipresent serving maids—this one a silver-scaled dragonkin with abundant cleavage spilling out of her tightly-laced blouse—dropped off a plate full of surprisingly normal looking bacon and eggs in front of him.

A few seconds after that—moments after his lips closed on a slightly too-hot forkful of food—Blue asked without preamble, “Do you want to have sex?”

Kevin, with a monumental effort of will, choked back the cough that threatened to spew eggs across the table. Then he began to carefully chew and swallow the food, even as the rest of the table went silent and turned to regard him. By the time he was able to speak, even Hazel and her disciples had broken off their conversation to stare at him, and his cheeks were beginning to turn red from the embarrassment. He eventually managed to swallow, washed the eggs down with a quick sip of water, then asked in turn, “Do you think that’s a particularly appropriate topic for the breakfast table?”

Blue shrugged. “Why not? It’s not like you haven’t slept with most of us already. Are you trying to keep that secret?”

“I—” Kevin glanced around the table, ready to deny the accusation. When his eyes scanned across the rest of the party, though, he realized he wasn’t exactly in a position to refute the harpy’s claim. “—no. I think that at this point, the cat’s out of the bag, so to speak, as far as what Lilith is really trying to do. She might have claimed when we first arrived that we were free to tackle the challenges she set however we saw fit, but I think she’s made it clear that one way or another, she intends for everyone here to become a part of my harem.”

Kevin’s announcement was received with a wide array of responses.

Stheno nodded her head decisively, the fierce pride she wore showing that Lilith’s desired outcome was not to be questioned. The gorgon had several plates in front of her, each heaped with food from bacon to waffles, and the vivacious glee was such a contrast to the hopeless expression she’d worn when she first arrived that it caused a smile to tug at the corner of Kevin’s lips.

Elsie shrugged her slender shoulders. The brownie had discussed the topic with Kevin the first night they’d shared together, and the faintly excited expression she wore showed that her approach to the topic hadn’t changed since then. The English girl had made it clear that since she didn’t believe there was any way to escape the fate the hostess had in store for them, she intended to embrace it and enjoy it as best she could.

Hazel’s gentle smile was contrasted by the more intense expressions of interest worn by her four disciples. Where the Grove Mother’s light brown eyes regarded him with calm acceptance, the red haired Autumn appeared mildly apprehensive. The raven haired Jennifer’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, while Summer’s eyes widened and Winter seemed to weigh him like a piece of meat.

Tess—unaware that she was even doing it—leaned to the side as though to interpose herself between Kevin and Abby. The younger selkie, on the other hand, appeared curious by the announcement. Whatever Tess might have wanted for the silver-haired eighteen year old, it was obvious her sibling wanted to see where Kevin’s words led.

Hwa scoffed. When that drew his attention and Kevin met her gaze, her eyes narrowed. Then they flicked down as though she could see through the table, then moved back up to his face. Make sure you’ve got enough for us, her expression seemed to demand, and the DM again wondered if he’d made a mistake with his actions last night. That die was cast, though, and there was no undoing what he’d done.

Penny looked thoughtful and more than a bit apprehensive. When he met her gaze, Kevin watched her expression shift rapidly from regret to hope to fear, before she looked away with a turn of her head.

“Duh.” Blue cut through the silence that followed with a single word. “Like I said, you’re already having sex with most of us, and it’s only a matter of time for the rest. So what does it matter if I ask if you want to fuck at breakfast? It’s not like it’s going to be a big shock to anybody if we head upstairs for a quickie. Your day today is with Penny, and she’s one of the ones you aren’t banging yet, right?” Penny’s head whipped around to stare in shock at the harpy, who ignored her in favor of maintaining eye contact with Kevin. Blue’s golden eyes shone with challenge, and she cocked an eyebrow at him, waiting for his response.

Kevin reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Penny and I are not sleeping together presently. Yes, I think that Lilith intends for me to be in a relationship with all of you eventually, but that doesn’t mean she and I have to rush into anything in particular.”

Blue nodded, her expression indicating that was exactly her point. “Right, so you aren’t getting any today. Why not take me upstairs, I’ll make sure you’re nice and satisfied for whatever quest you do with Penny today, then you can get on with… whatever it is you’re doing today.” She paused there, and waited just long enough for Kevin to absorb her words before adding, “Unless Hwa drained you so dry last night that you don’t have enough left for me?”

Hwa glared at Blue. The harpy ignored her, challenging glare remaining locked on Kevin instead. The DM returned it with a flat look, and rather than rising to the challenge he turned to look back across the table. “I—look, Most of you have known me for less than two weeks now. Even the ones I’ve known longer—” He glanced briefly at Penny and Blue to either side of him, then let his gaze linger a little longer on Hazel, “—I wouldn’t have said that about a week ago. That’s not enough time for you to actually get to know me, but I hope that I’ve at least managed to convince you that I’m not the kind of person who would have chosen this.”

“You haven’t exactly gone out of your way to prevent anything either, though.” The words came from Tess, and while the tone in which they were delivered wasn’t challenging, neither was it particularly forgiving or friendly. “You’ve already fucked half of us, and seem pretty convinced the rest of us are going to be sleeping with you before too long. ‘Not rushing into things’ with Penny does sound a lot like you’ve already decided that it’s going to happen.”

Both Penny and Kevin grimaced at that. The siren’s focus shifted quickly back to the season’s Master as she interjected, “I—look, I know what I did to you was—”

“You didn’t do anything to me, Penny.” Kevin cut the siren off mid-sentence, before his tone softened. “Lilith did, she just used your body to do it. I’m—I can’t pretend that the memories she gave me won’t affect me, but it wasn’t you.” He shook his head, clearly attempting to convince himself of that as much as Penny. “And Tess is right. I—the first night I was here, I spent the whole time reading through the archives of other seasons of Harem Hotel. Some of them read almost like romances, while others are horror novels wrapped in a veneer of sex appeal. It—I wanted to do what I could to shape things. Make them more like the lighter seasons, and less like the ones where the contestants are twisted into toys. In doing so, though, I let myself accept the base premise without putting up much of a fight.”

“Why fight Lilith at all?” Stheno’s voice was quiet, but the humming undertone of energy it conveyed all but thrummed with poorly concealed fanaticism. “Apart from Hwa, each of us seems to have been given something which we needed or desired.” Her eyes flicked to each of the other members of the party in turn. “Penny, an escape from the mire in which you found yourself trapped, and a patron willing to see you for more than the allure of your voice. Blue, new sisters who listen rather than bicker, exploration and novelty. Tess, a way to distinguish yourself from your sister and excel in a field without peer. Elsie, adventure and fantasy your mundane life would have denied you despite your heritage. Hazel, a family who can think beyond the next dawn with whom you can share your whole self.”

Absent from the accounting was Stheno herself, the answer so obvious that no one commented on its absence. Instead, she turned to Hwa, commented, “And perhaps even the little fox secretly longed for someone to put her in her place.” The kumiho half rose from her chair, only to find her limbs unmoving as the shackles permanently wrapped around her wrists and ankles suddenly became fixed in place in midair. She struggled against them for only a moment as the Binding Bargain she’d made with Kevin restrained her, then slumped back into her seat.

“Snake.”

Stheno ignored the kumiho’s muttered comment and instead turned her gaze back on Kevin. “And you. I felt your enthusiasm in my embrace. You longed for such a life of adventure and fantasy. Perhaps you were taught to deny it, but it is right that the champion of a true goddess like my Mistress has a harem gathered about him. Your heart and your loins know this, even if your mind does not.”

Kevin swallowed visibly and again wilted back from the collective gaze of the party. He steeled himself after a moment, then closed his eyes as he replied, “I can’t deny that there’s a part of me that finds this exciting. You—all of you—are incredible. Until Lilith brought me here, I thought magic was no more than fantasy, and there’s a part of me that would have killed to learn otherwise. The idea of a slob like me having more than one girlfriend—well, I didn’t.”

His eyes opened and, on seeing the scorn on Tess’ face and the disappointment in Hazel’s, Kevin rushed to add, “But that doesn’t mean I would have actually chosen any of this. The first day I was here, I told you that if I had the power to send you all home, I would have. That’s still true. If Lily—if Lilith—” He corrected himself with emphasis, “—gave me the chance to do so now, I’d send all of you back home in a heartbeat. Teenage me might not have, but that doesn’t mean the same is true of me.”

This time, it was Stheno’s glare with which Kevin had to contend. For the span of a heartbeat as he gazed into the Gorgon’s gorgeous green eyes, he was filled with both the terror and the knowledge that ten days before, the look would have literally struck him dead. His hands quickly raised as he backpedaled, “For those of you who wanted it. Stheno, you have made your position extremely clear.”

His gaze flicked towards Elsie and a flash of guilt crossed his expression, but rather than address it he continued, “But in the end, none of that matters, because she won’t. You’re all as stuck here as I am, and the best that I can offer is to do everything I can to mitigate things. I—” He inhaled deeply, then let out a breath of air which glowed with wisps of golden light. “I talked to someone the day before yesterday, about the ‘Gift’ I got with my class. He told me that it’s meant to help me decide what happens. I can’t use it to stop things entirely, or undo the changes that have already been done, but it gives me a measure of control over the—for want of a better word—story.”

“Wait—so you’re going to just… decide for us?” Some of the despair was suddenly gone from Penny’s voice, a hint of the challenge she’d shown Lily on arrival replacing it with a dangerous hum that spoke of anger and defiance.

“No! No, not—not if I can help it. It’s why I’m bringing it up now. I wanted to tell all of you about it yesterday, only—” Penny’s cheeks suddenly flushed, but she refused to back down as Kevin finished somewhat weakly, “—things happened.”

“So what do you intend to do, Kevin?” Hazel’s tone was even, and reasonable—but thanks to the memories he now had of months spent working at the nymph’s co-op, the sole male at the table was able to recognize the hints of a leading note in it.

“Well, for one thing, I intend to try to get to know all of you better. Again, most of us were strangers two weeks ago, and it’s not like I’ve had a lot quiet moments to really get to know you. My plan is to only use House Rule with your consent, but the way Lily has everything set up, I’m not always going to get to have that option. I’m going to have to make a choice on the spot, without getting to consult you. The better I know you all, the better the chances that whatever I pick is the—I won’t say best option, but maybe least bad?” Kevin tried a hint of humor as he wrapped up, though only Elsie and Stheno laughed. The former’s was a slightly nervous giggle, while the latter’s came out as a challenge aimed at the entire room.

“But—I’m open to suggestions. The way this is set up, I don’t think I get the option to be anything other than the party leader, but that doesn’t mean this is suddenly a dictatorship. Just that—well, it isn’t exactly a democracy either.” Kevin’s glance towards Hwa as he made the claim betrayed a hint of guilt, but he steeled himself as he waited for the party’s replies.

“That’s not so bad.” Elsie’s voice sounded a little nervous, but a thread of hope worked its way through despite her reservations.

“So—a kingdom, then, and we’re your advisers?” Penny sounded somewhat skeptical, but some of the fire had already faded from her voice.

“Or a church, with Kevin as the instrument of our goddess’s will.” Stheno’s eyes fixed on nothing at all as she stared past the DM at something only she could see.

“So, like, what about all of us?” Surprise registered on several faces as Summer suddenly interjected herself into the conversation. More, she included Abby in a gesture as she indicated the women Kevin had yet to address.

“Same offer.”

“But the four of us are from here, and you didn’t even mention Abby?”

Kevin nodded. “The offer is still the same. I want to try to get to know all of you better. Summer, Autumn, Winter—Jennifer, I’m not sure where Lilith plucked you from, but I plan to do my best to get to know you, and I promise that whatever happens I will always try to make sure that whatever ending or story you get, you’ll have as much say in it as possible.”

“Well, isn’t that a sweet notion.”

Kevin let out a somewhat shrill sound as Lilith’s voice all but dripped into his ear.