Ladies Laying Down For Bed

Mona

Mona is thoroughly satisfied after that long, strange masturbation session. They didn’t even get around to watching the Host’s season as the Mistress. This Ophelia has exquisite taste in frigg fuel and Harem Hotel can certainly deliver the goods. She likes to think she’s made a friend with the sardonic sea elf.

She leans back into the couch, lazy and boneless, as the maid addresses her. “So, last meal before your diet starts tomorrow. What do you want, with the understanding that cup noodles don’t exist here?”

What would I want as a last meal? I really like cup noodles, but that’s partially because they are cheap and easy to make. I presume my sexy maid friend (I have a sexy maid friend!) is actually going to do the work. Hmmmm...

Mona’s stomach gurgles embarrassingly loud as she thinks. She did not realize just how hungry she was until she started thinking about dinner. “Pizza? Pizza is always good.”

Vix, the little scamp, yips and wags her tails.

“Follow me to the kitchen. We’re gonna make some pizzas. You are sooo lucky my moms taught me about food from your world.”

Ophelia slips her panties back up, stands up, and sashays to the kitchen, Vix excitedly following along. Mona moans, but stands up to follow anyways (after, of course, pulling up her pajama pants). She finds Ophelia thoroughly washing her hands in a kitchen wash sink. Mona sees that the room looks like what she would imagine a professional test kitchen would be, all shiny chrome surfaces and way more kitchen appliances than she’s ever seen.

The maid steps away from the sink, drying her hands and asking, “What style of pizza are we making, Mona? Mama Scarlet really likes New York style. Several of my other moms like the California cracker thin crust. The Queen would insist on a keto pizza abomination at this time of night. Thoughts?”

Keto pizza? That’s a thing? “Normal pizza?”

“New York style it is, then. I’m putting you to work. Grab a pineapple, a can of anchovies, a container of braised squid, cheese, canned tomatoes, garlic, a sprig of oregano, olive oil, and whatever toppings you want.”

Some of those ingredients sound super gross. “Pineapple on pizza is blasphemy.”

“Blame Vix. She apparently called it ‘The Sweet and Salty’? You won’t have a chance to try it; Vix WILL nip at you if you take some of her pizza. And the squid is for me, but I will let you have a slice, if you want.”

Mona sighs and starts to assemble the ingredients after washing her hands. She grabs some pepperoni for herself. It’s neither pre-sliced nor in a little resealable baggie, which confuses her. The pineapple is whole, but that’s more expected. Ophelia is busy stretching three pre-made dough balls into pizza shapes. Not even looking up, Ophelia tells Mona to open the tomatoes and thoroughly crush them with her hands in a bowl. Mona struggles with the can opener, but eventually manages it. By the time Ophelia has three pizza doughs prepped, Mona has a bowl of mashed tomatoes.

Ophelia lightly hip checks Mona out of the way, then drizzles some olive oil into the bowl. She takes the sprig of oregano and rubs it over the bowl, making the dried leaves gently fall into the sauce. After crushing, peeling, and finely grating a couple of cloves of garlic, Ophelia asks, “How spicy do you want it?”

“Ah, we have gochujang?”

“We do. Grab me a jar. Good thing I waited on the salt.”

Mona finds a jar and Ophelia adds a teaspoon. “Don’t tell Mama Scarlet. She’s a pizza purist. Doesn’t even approve of toppings. Can you believe that? Can I trust you with a knife? We need that cheese cut into 1-inch cubes.”

Mona struggles with the knife, but she’s not completely helpless. The maid stirs the sauce and starts ladling it out, then starts to breaks down the pineapple. “So, how do you want your pepperoni? Sliced? Cubed?”

Oooh, like the fancy frozen pizzas when I want to splurge. “Both?”

Ophelia starts assembling pizzas as Mona makes enough cheese cubes. First, a pizza with pineapple and anchovies. Second, one with squid. Third, one with “two kinds” of pepperoni. All three go in a wood-fired oven at the same time, a rotating stone inside it letting the pizzas be checked and pulled out when they are done. Mona is surprised how quickly the pizzas cooked. Ophelia pulls them out, dusts them with a little more oregano, then slices them with a big, weird curved knife that has handles on both ends.

As the trio walk to the table, with pizzas in hand (Ophelia carrying Vix’s abomination as well as her own), Mona asks, “Did you magic the pizza to cook faster? The frozen pizzas at home normally take like 20 minutes to bake.”

“Nope. Having the right oven helps as does baking something not frozen to start with. Ever wonder how delivery places can get a pizza done so quickly in your world?”

Mona sits down as she thinks about that. Ophelia slides Vix’s pizza onto the table and the fox familiar starts to happily (and a bit messily) eat it. Mona takes a slice; it’s a little floppy. She watches as Ophelia folds hers like a taco before biting. Mona tries that and it helps. “Ooooh, wow! This is really, really good!”

They talk about the smut they watched together for a bit. Mona especially liked the porn-ception of watching that Levi kid jerk off to watching those Tomoko and Olivia chicks having hot heterosexual girl-on-girl action. Ophelia preferred the orgies in that haunted castle (though she did admit to be a little grossed out by the “sister-fucking”). When the conversation turned to hot Masters / Mistresses, Ophelia quickly picked Laura Black (again, despite the “sister-fucking”), but Mona couldn’t decide; most of them are sooooo hot. She is definitely fantasizing about an orgy at a Master/Mistress meet-up. Ophelia rolls her eyes when Mona muses if she could play with Ashley’s butt with a dildo while Felix eats her out (They need help to cum!). Vix yips as her pizza is gone. Ophelia offers the fox a slice of her own. “Did you want to try my squid-zza?”

Mona makes a face. “Nah. Tentacles are for sex, not food.”

Ophelia shrugs and takes a bite of her last slice. Between bites, she asks, “Dessert?”

Both Mona and Vix drool. Ophelia walks back to the kitchen, finishing up the last bites of her pizza as she goes. Mona pets the fae fox and checks out her phone while she waits. In what felt like no time at all, the maid returns with three bowls.

“Is that bingsu?”

“Got it in one.” Vix greedily dives into the one presented to her, with finely diced mangoes and some chili powder on top. Mona pops a strawberry off of hers. Ophelia’s looks weird. The maid answers the unspoken question, “It’s Honey Ginger Salmon. Just like Mama Daphne’s favorite ice cream.”

“You have weird tastes.”

Ophelia shrugs, “Sea elves are marine people. Our taste buds are different. Still, I’m way more normal than Mama Daphne.”

Mona has a question that has been nagging her. She stammers into asking, “Can I ask you something a little bit personal?”

Ophelia takes a bite of shaved ice with a chunk of glazed salmon. “Go ahead. I may not answer, but you can ask.”

“When Tyalangan was here, you were so mean to her. Why?”

Ophelia stares at her dessert, takes a few bites, before she answers. It’s almost as if the maid needs to get her own feelings in order, “I suppose, as the Mistress, you deserve to know. I don’t hate The Queen. It’s just that I... it’s hard to explain. When she’s there, she gives you her undivided attention. But, she’s pulled in so many directions at once all the time, between the queendom and show prep and my other moms and my sisters. My other sisters, they could always go to the mom that looks like them when they felt small; I couldn’t. I just quickly got it in my head that I should push her away to justify feeling alone, I guess? Maybe that’s why she assigned me here? Make me feel like I’m important enough to be trusted to keep you alive? I don’t know.” After another pause, the sea elf looks sullen, “Sorry for being heavy, but you asked.”

Mona thinks about her parents. They never really cared for her. She wasn’t smart and driven like her older brother, Wincent. He got a full ride to Stanford, a girlfriend who’s parents are doctors, a corporal rank in the campus militia. She was content to just coast through life. She barely graduated high school, barely gave college a try. And now, she’s fated to be the world’s last hope? It feels like too much.

“If you were in my position, what would you want your mom to say to you?”

Ophelia is watching Vix (Did Vix’s eyes change color? When did that happen?). She turns to Mona. “Look, Mistress, my position is different than yours. I spent decades learning how to make war, studying history and magic theory and so many other things. If The Queen charged me to lead the effort to save your world, she’d tell me that I will succeed. And that she is proud of me and loves me no matter how bitchy I am to her. Even if I was truly in your shoes, I’d want my mom to say the same thing. You?”

Mona can’t imagine her mom saying something like that to her. To Wincent, sure. But not her. She can only think about how they’d call her a disappointment.

Vix suddenly lets out something like whale song. A few tears stream down Ophelia’s face, quickly brushed aside. Mona is confused and the maid isn’t explaining. Instead, she says, “If you don’t mind, Mistress, I am going to go prepare a bath for you. You should make yourself ready for the others in the morning.”

The sea elf stands and heads deeper into the Suite. Vix, eyes back to normal, nuzzles into Mona’s arms.

“Wanna tell me what you just said, Vix?”

The fox cocks her head, confused. Mona stares at her. Vix yips and wiggles its tails, enjoying the attention and hoping for more junk food. Curious. Something weird is going on. I mean, weirder than the other weird things going on.

Andromeda

The library was a bit of a bust. The shelves seemed to go on forever. Row after row after row of books. No computers. No help desk. No librarian. Just so many books.

Andromeda wandered the stacks, looking for something relevant to the terrifying image seared in her brain. Nothing came up, but she found out some interesting things anyway. For one, the library has a bunch of different varieties of the same book, some normal, some perverse, some in unexpected languages, many too out of reach to examine. She figured it out when she found an entire bookcase filled with copies of The Divine Comedy by Dante. Many were what she expected, with slight variations in the translation that implied a subtle change in the original Italian. A few were written in German or Greek or Latin. She finds one written in what looks like some sort of pictographic text that made no sense. The more obvious variations were ones that changed the title and Dante’s name. The most common name change was The Divine Cumedy. Those books are downright pornographic. Either this is a very elaborate prank or the multiverse is real.

She also found some books more immediately relevant. Texts on arcane theory. Much of it doesn’t make sense, but Andromeda struggles to read a bit of one of them anyways. Feeling a migraine starting to set in, she returned to her dorm room. She felt at that point that reading the rule book would be a better use of her time.

So, she sat and read until dinner. She read over dinner (a very lovely stew in a crusty bread bowl, with a slice of chocolate cake so good Andromeda thought she might climax from eating it). She kept reading back in the room after dinner. She had made good progress (despite the Bella distractions), but there is so much more to go.

Tegan stomps in, as angry and frustrated as she left. The Olympian grabs some toiletries and some official looking pajamas, looking like she intends to shower and get ready for bed. A few pages of legalese rules consumed later, and the angry archer returns, brown hair shaved down to a buzz cut, and glowers at the gamer girl.

“Well?”

“Well, what, Tegan?”

“Aren’t you going to get ready for bed? Lights out at 9 PM.”

Andromeda glares at the girl. “We are both going to need to adapt, Tegan. I’m a night owl.”

“Unacceptable. Late nights are bad for performance. Next you’ll tell me that you want to sleep in past 5 AM.”

People get up at 5 AM? Why? Andromeda bides her tongue, instead proposing, “Compromise. I will get ready for bed, then we talk about our situation. Politely. Can you do that?”

Getting the closest thing to a polite nod she has observed from the other girl, Andromeda closes the rule book and goes for a shower. And what a luxurious shower she has. Perfect temperature, just the right amount of water pressure. She could have stood under the shower for hours. She dries herself off, braids her hair for sleep, and dresses for bed (remembering sleep shorts this time).

Andromeda steps out of the bathroom to a confusing scene. Tegan is yelling at the bunny-maid (which seems expected) and the comforter on the bed disappeared (which is very unexpected).

“What’s going on, you two?”

Seemingly happy to have an interruption, Bella bounds over. “Oh, nice friend Andromeda, I was trying to make friends with Tegan by giving her her goodie bag thingy and she was grumpy that I didn’t give it to her sooner. Then, she read the bounty board thingy and got super grumpy. Finally, she activated the magic comforter’s effect and got super duper grumpy. How do I fix her?”

Andromeda can see the first two reactions being somewhat reasonable, but the third eludes her. “Magical comforter?”

“The comforter goes invisible when in use to show off friendly nighttime cuddles!”

“Ah, I see. Well, that’s... interesting.” Andromeda walks to the bed, feels for the comforter, and slips under it. Tegan growls as she shifts further back in the bed. The mirror hanging from the canopy of the bed makes the situation strangely more intimate than the gamer expected.

Bella asks, “Anything else the two of you need before I lock you in for the night? A cookie? Some lube? A double-sided dildo?”

Tegan throws her copy of the rule book at Bella’s head. The bunny-maid hops over the book, then scurries out. The door locks behind her.

“Turn off the light. Time for bed.”

“You agreed to some polite conversation, Tegan.”

The angry archer adds a tinge more ire to her answer, “You have until I fall asleep. Lights off.”

Sighing, Andromeda turns off the lights. She lays back, staring at the ceiling, indistinguishable from the dark the room is now blanketed in. “You have me at a disadvantage, Tegan. I presume you were the first introduced. You saw everyone else come in. That right?”

“Yeah, I saw. What’s your point?”

“Can you tell me what you saw with Ms. O’Connor-Peters and the criminal girl? And what you experienced? I am especially interested in how you were convinced to participate.”

The tidbits of information Andromeda received is interesting, if needing personal verification. This Belinda Jorgensen is a convicted terrorist. Her hatred of humanity runs deep, though she may not have thought her way through the implications of it (especially if that first transformation option of hers is to be believed; the middle one is by far the most benign of them). The criminal looked happy over dinner, from Andromeda’s brief glances her way. Maybe the gamer can convince her by pointing out the environmental impact of a cosmic horror tearing a giant hole through the Earth?

Ms. O’Connor-Peters running an Insta-Thot account was surprising, as is the idea that the Host is her brother (though that does explain the outburst when the gamer girl entered the throne). There must be more to that story. Andromeda did not see her former teacher at dinner, but she did eat relatively early. Tomorrow, maybe Andromeda should offer to help the teacher find some answers? The sooner that mystery is solved, the sooner the teacher can focus on the real goal.

Tegan stays tight-lipped about her personal experience. Very unhelpful.

Andromeda prods, “And you? What did you see? What did you dream?”

“You first, cow.”

The gamer resists slapping the archer, remembering the rule against non-sexy **** to cast and crew (being unsure where that particular line is drawn). Instead, she describes her dream. And the subsequent warning she received from the Host. Even in the dark of the room, Andromeda catches Tegan shudder in something like fear.

“That can’t be true. It just... can’t.”

“But if it is? Can we risk it? If Mona...”

“The big-tittied cow,” Tegan interjects.

Tegan: -1 XP (Insulting the Mistress)

“If MONA truly has the fate of the world in her hands, we need to do everything we can to help her. Including playing this game. If what I read from the rules are true, we should play the game anyways. Our souls are essentially on the line if we fail.”

Tegan grumbles something incomprehensible. She gathers some more invisible comforter and rolls to the side. Andromeda decides to give the angry archer some time to process. She feels like she made some progress, at least. So, she lays on her back and tries to fall asleep. The lack of screens certainly helps.

Gaia

Dinner was delicious. Gaia was only mildly disappointed that they didn’t have her favorite brand of meat substitutes, but real vegan food more than made up for it. She even liked the tofu in her stew, and she normally doesn’t like tofu.

The strange lilac-skinned chef praised Gaia for rejecting shoes, calling it a “good start for embracing decency.” Gaia chuckles at that. She felt a little bit uncomfortable when the girl starts to sing most of the way through dinner; her singing voice is weirdly arousing for some reason.

After the lovely dinner, she bounds up two flights of stairs to her room, humming the strange tune she heard. Summer the maid waits in front of Summer the room.

“Evening, Gaia. You left before I could give you your goodie bag. Here.”

Gaia doesn’t care about the phone or the rule book. She is mildly interested in the coupons. The personal gift in the bag, however, is amazing. A terrarium. Gaia gets to setting it up.

“Oh, and I am supposed to fetch you whatever you want for it, within reason.” the maid adds.

“Really?” Gaia exclaims like a kid at Christmastide. No one has ever given her something so nice as this in a long time. Seeing the nod, Gaia squees and asks for those Venus flytrap like plants she saw in the garden.

“I will have it ready for you by the time you are done with a shower.”

Gaia squees again and hurries to get said shower started. The criminal feels like a queen in the shower, as the water cascades down her. She takes some extra time to wash her feet thoroughly, as trampling garden trails all afternoon coated her feet in mud. Soon enough, she forces herself out, chastising herself for wasting too much water. While it’s still the tank top and panties from the prison, it seems her clothes have been washed while she was showering. She dresses and takes her time checking out her new plant friends.

When the old bitty walks in, Gaia doesn’t notice at first. The teacher grabs a change of clothes appropriate for bed and heads to the bathroom. When she returns, she finally tries to get Gaia’s attention, “Gaia, how was your afternoon? Mine was enlightening, if frustrating.”

Gaia gladly describes the garden and her time in it. She emphasizes the warmth of the sun, the feel of the sea breeze through the humid mist, the feel of dirt between her toes, the sight of all of those beautiful, thriving plants. It was a good day; the best in years.

The old bitty crawls into bed, a book in her hands. “Good to hear. Glad you are more than just anger. That from your gift bag?”

Gaia nods, still watching the plants.

“Seems good. I always thought it was better to reward good actions than punish bad ones. Take care of those plants. Nurture them. Maybe you’ll inspire others to do the same.”

Gaia softens a little. It’s not the first time someone asked her to focus more on preserving the wilds than on destroying civilization. The way that garden was organized, maybe it is possible?

“What you get, old lady?”

The bitty pauses a moment, then pulls a book out of her wardrobe, putting the much thicker rule book away. “A strange copy of Beowulf. The Host remembers that I like poetry, and that my brother always got me epic poems as a gift. He refused to buy me the poetry I wanted; he thought the lyrical poets were too sentimental. It’s apparently a local version, a translation from Sylvan to Common. Beauwolf breeds a monster called Grundle, then Grundle’s mother, then dies trying to breed a dragon. It’s perverse, but the poem is very well constructed. The translator got the perfect meter for oration. Want to hear some of it?”

Gaia snuggles into the comforter, barely noticing the blanket becoming invisible or the mirror above the bed, as the old bitty starts to read aloud. The rhythm of the words are engaging, the story pretty hot. Way better than the version they read in high school. And soon, the terrorist falls asleep, dreaming of a big-dicked wolf-man plunging into her hopefully soon to be viney depths.