Taking No for an Answer

Lorelei: Beloved John,

A vision has come to me. The consequences of your press conference shall soon find you. Know that you may walk however many steps you wish, yet the road will always end in a simple split. Either affirm, walking an uncertain path of thorns and roses, or find yourself facing the fury of the woman scorned.

I trust you to act in all our interest with this information. Further, I do not know if this prophecy even provides more than a warning for the obvious. Still, I may hope that I have been of aid to you, my Saint.

In love, forever yours,

Lorelei.

John stared at the Harem Comm message for a few seconds. ‘Writing texts like they are letters,’ he thought, his mirth stopping short of rising up his throat.

“Waddup?” Jane asked from under the table.

“Does something have to be up?” he retorted on instinct.

“Ja, ‘cause I just did a thing that usually has you go, like… ‘ungh’!” She did a surprisingly good job at mimicking a masculinely pitched grunt. “So, since ya didn’t react at all to the thing, something must be going on.”

John rolled back a bit, regretfully removing his cock from the handjob he received while they were chatting. Understanding the signal, his first wife came out from the leg compartment of his work table. Ehtra eyed them both from her work station, a glass desk near the entrance to the emperor’s office.

“Can I ask what the thing is?” the Gamer wondered, pressing the button to put his clothes back on. The Preserver, his heavily enchanted underwear, could take care of the slick state his dick was in – he just usually preferred a hand cleaning. The magical scrubbing felt… weird. He could most closely liken it to a soft toothbrush that was giving his dick a quick, efficient and impersonal rub.

“Do ya want the details on how we suck your dick?” Jane returned a question of her own.

He contemplated that for a moment. Would he ever apply this knowledge? Obviously not. Was it going to make the experience more enjoyable? Potentially yes, potentially no. “Well, now that I know that there is such a thing, the question will stick with me like a toothache.”

“Alright, so, I do this thing where I take you just deep enough that the second sensitive spot halfway down your shaft-“

“I have a second sensitive spot halfway down my shaft?” John had never given too much thought about it. He just knew that the head and glans were really sensitive. For everything else, there was simply no curiosity on his part.

“It’s a lot less sensitive, but yeah – anyway, so I have that on top of the, like… arch? The arching of my tongue and then I flare and contract my tongue a bunch. I do that for one to three seconds and then you go, ‘ungh!’”

“You have me down to a science.”

“I think Momo or Scarlett actually made spreadsheets on how quickly we can make ya cum with certain techniques… guess what won?”

“Grip base, suck on the tip, bob at a rapid pace?”

“How did ya know?” Jane drawled sarcastically.

“I enjoy the art to sex, but the simplest approach usually is the most effective one.” John shook his head. “In any case, Lorelei just sent me a prophecy and if I read it right, Esmeralda is about to barge in here.”

The constant tapping of Ehtra’s fingers on the mechanical keyboard came to an abrupt stop. “Should I allow her to enter?” the secretary asked.

“Lorelei said that delays don’t matter, in the end there is only confirmation or denial… so we might as well get this over with,” John answered. “Or, rather, I want to see how she behaves and make my final call based on that.”

“Understood. Do you want me to step out?” Ehtra tilted her head. “I know how she is and how I can be. I have the potential to agitate the feisty creature.”

John snorted at the amusing display of self-awareness, then shook his head. “I want both of you to be here… but try not to rile her up.”

“Then I will speak when prompted,” the angel maid declared and resumed her work.

“Are you going to get cleaned up?” John asked his first wife, who had hopped onto the table. The bit of moisture humans naturally radiated cast the sexiest of condensation lines on the polished hardwood around her perfect butt and singular raised leg. She was the very image of a dream wife, with cat ears, a proud smirk, and the marks of recent cock worship all over her face.

“Nah,” the nude half-Asian bombshell dismissed him casually.

John kissed her leg. He kissed both of her legs. He would have kissed so much more if he didn’t run the risk of tasting his own produce. Perhaps he should give her a massage before bed tonight? She certainly deserved it.

The phone on Ehtra’s table, a deliberately old-timey, large thing that rested on a station, rang. Still typing with one hand, the grey angel picked it up. “Yes? I see. She is expected. Let her proceed. Yes. Point her in the right direction.” Ehtra slammed the receiver back down. “As Rel foretold, the feisty creature is on her way.”

John reclined in his office chair, preparing himself for what was a necessary but deeply unpleasant encounter.

The door to his office flew open, then was immediately slammed shut by the woman hurrying inside. Moving with all the grace of a Latebloomer dubbed ‘the Dancer’ and all the heated urgency of a feisty Latina, the woman rushed towards his table. Space distorted under her magical steps, allowing her to cross the minimal distance that much faster. Curling of sight stopped when she brought both hands down on his desk.

A series of Spanish curses left her. There was nothing in them that the Gamer could have answered to, so he politely waited for her to get her bearings.

Even cussing, Esmeralda was a very attractive woman. Short, brown hair fell just below her chin in mildly curled strands, framing her Mediterranean face and the green eyes that made her name so fitting. Passion only added to her beauty. A year ago, he would have hung on her lips. Though, to give himself credit, even over a year ago, there had been a not entirely dissimilar case of someone angling to join his harem.

“Who is Layla?!” Esmeralda finally managed to get her question out. She was speaking English, so she was still understanding whose house she was in, at least.

“A woman that I fancy,” the Gamer responded plainly.

“A woman that suddenly appeared in your harem, more like!” Esmeralda bent over the table, her fingers twitching. “You told me to take it slow with you, that you were not pursuing any more women!”

“I have not been,” he continued cooly. “Layla pursued me.”

“And why is that working for her and not for me?!” Esmeralda was shouting the question as much at him as the entire world.

“Ya gotta calm down,” Jane chimed in.

“Calm down?” A sharp, mirthless laugh followed that question. Forcefully, Esmeralda straightened up. She took several deep breaths. “I am as calm as I need to be for this. I am Maria Esmeralda Espinosa, I am a Latebloomer, a powerful one at that, and I am quite the catch!” She gestured at herself, balanced proportions nicely wrapped up in a red summer dress. “I believed we had an arrangement, John Newman, between equals.”

John put his elbows on the table. “And what arrangement would that be?”

“I let you have your pretension that you have limits and in turn I invert the proper order of these things and pursue with patience.” The feisty Latina stepped away from his table, only to glare over her shoulder at Ehtra and then begin pacing left to right in front of the table. “I was willing to lead this dance, to find out who my partners would be – I was taking this slow and then I have to learn that you got together with another woman while I wasn’t looking? Did you lie to me?!”

The Gamer rose up from his seat. “I told you from the start that I did not want to grow my harem.”

“Which was a lie, clearly.”

“It wasn’t a lie, it just isn’t that simple,” John responded. “I have known Layla for a while. The situation between us was and is complicated.”

“You gave her chances. You let her travel with you. Yet you make me sit here and let me go ignored!”

On that, John had to admit a bit of guilt… but simultaneously, it was entirely his right to shrug to that accusation. “I never promised you anything.”

Esmeralda’s eyes widened as she froze in place. “Is that how you see this?” she muttered and clutched the crucifix resting on her caramel skin.

“The way I see this is that I always told you exactly what my intent with you was,” the Gamer responded. “Which is: nothing. You are a Latebloomer inside my territory. That means you have my attention automatically. If more ever comes out of our relationship, then that would be that, but I am not approaching you with that in mind. I have to stop expanding my harem.”

“You already made one exception!”

“Layla made herself the exception.”

“So why can’t I? I am a Latebloomer just like you, there is nothing she has done that I cannot!”

“You do not even know her.”

“It doesn’t matter, I am Maria Esmeralda Espinosa and I will succeed!”

“Could you drag yourself, one girl of unimpressive power, across the continent?” John asked. “Could you, despite your relative weakness, infiltrate places you really shouldn’t be? More importantly, could you drop down fearlessly into the belly of an eldritch horror to deliver a stab that decides a war? Fuelled by nothing but contempt, love and sheer will while your body is broken and exhausted?”

Esmeralda pushed the air out of her nose in a moment of annoyance.

It was that singular moment that finalized John’s decision regarding the Dancer. “I am not expanding my harem. I am not making an exception for you. You won’t succeed in making yourself an exception.”

The Dancer listened to his cold tone, eyebrows pulling further and further together. “What are you saying?” she asked in a low, threatening tone.

“That you’re not gonna get from us what ya want,” Jane chimed in. The Latina’s gaze leapt over to his first wife. “Listen, I like ya well enough, but you’re approaching this with entitlement and ya got nothing that earns ya that position. That Layla got in is sort of a miracle. Waltzing in here and demanding an explanation of how that happened – it doesn’t paint ya in the light of someone that can partake in this lifestyle.”

“What does that even mean?” Esmeralda hissed.

“Ehtra, I think you want to answer that?” John said.

“Thank you.” The First of Hatred rose with such intensity her chair rolled all the way to the wall. “It means ‘Maria Esmeralda Espinosa,’” the grey angel echoed the full name of the Latina mockingly, “that you are not a special creature. You think highly of yourself, but to us you are neither outstandingly beautiful nor do you have any powers that we need. You have deluded yourself into thinking that we are the only ones worthy of you, yet missed the crucial detail that you are not worthy of us.”

The air in the room was growing hotter by the second. The bones behind Esmeralda’s skin were shimmering through, painting the shadow of a white death mask onto her darkening features. “…You done?”

“Guide that thought to the afterlife, I have much more in store.” Ehtra crossed her arms, entirely unthreatened by Esmeralda’s display. “We can judge you entirely by your character. You have promise – you are interesting and you showed the right thought at first. Right now, you are showing that you cannot stand that another woman’s happiness comes before yours.”

“I was lied to!”

“You have decided on that on your own.”

“Listen,” Jane chimed in before either angel maid or Dancer could take things further. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Esmeralda. This is not a lifestyle that most women can be a part of or that most men could carry.”

Esmeralda’s face was now worthy of a depiction of death at a carnival. “I am willing to share!”

“But we’re not willing to share without a very good reason anymore,” Jane shot back. “This ain’t just a John thing, Gaia, it might not even be primarily a John thing. He probably could get another two bodies and make sure he spends enough time with us, but we also want to know each other and that means there’s an end of the line.”

“An end that is blurry,” John spoke in support of his wife. “There are few certainties. Right now, however, I am certain of this – you are not fit for this. Give up on me.”

“You think you can just decide that?!” Esmeralda stomped once and the entire building shook. “That I will just be scorned like a random girl from the street that you lost interest in?! I knew there was something between us when we kissed! You cannot deny that!”

“I do not deny that,” John spoke truthfully. “There was a fleeting interest there, and had we met earlier, it perhaps would have blossomed into something greater.”

“But ya did not meet him earlier,” Jane said harshly. “We had already decided to slow down. Layla was in our considerations. You were not. There’s a lot more, a whole lot more, to the Imperial Choir than you’re getting.”

Esmeralda grit her teeth and tapped her heel. The building trembled again.

“Do that one more time,” Ehtra growled, “and I am throwing you out myself, disrespectful creature.”

“The answer…” John intonated every syllable with regretful certainty, “…is no, Esmeralda. Until right now, you did nothing wrong. You are simply reaching for an unattainable goal.”

“…” Esmeralda said nothing, did nothing, looked at nothing. She stood there, simply processing what she had heard. Then, she threw her head back and laughed. “You will regret this.” Those four words uttered, she headed for the exit.

A cold, calculating part of John urged him to kill or at least confine her. It was not a part that he was going to listen to. Even if Lorelei’s prophecy assured him that she was going to carry that grudge into the future, he was not going to kill her for that. It would take her acting in a tremendously stupid way based on that for him to go that far.

The air in the room rapidly discharged when the feisty Latina was out. The floor, warped by her impatient steps, began to repair itself. Ehtra made a quick call to assure the administrators in the building that all was fine.

A heavy sigh left John as he fell back into his chair. “Well, that went poorly,” he said. “I sort of knew it would since the wedding. She’s been way too emotionally entangled in the idea of succeeding…”

“I feel kinda sorry for her,” Jane confessed. “She’s not that unfitting, probably could have trained her to be a proper fit for the harem… kinda like Hailey.”

“Yeah, this is not a Marie situation… though it might be and this was just a showcase of greater problems.” John shook his head.

“The details are ephemeral,” Ehtra stated. “The only justification needed is that the expansion must be brought to a gradual halt. Only exceptionally fitting candidates with good reasons and strong vetting may pass into the Imperial Choir now.”

“Even using that term in private conversation now, are we?” John noted with a bit of dry humour.

“It’s a good term,” Jane said. “Lots of gravitas. Makes me feel important.”

“You are the light of my life, Jane, you are always important.”

“Mhhhhhmmmm… Ehtra, can ya add that to my titles? Light of Imperial Life. Put that on a t-shirt.”

John laughed , then shook his head again. “Well… urgh, I feel like there’s more to be said but that’s really it, isn’t it? We said no, she took it poorly and whatever happens next is on her…”

“As you creatures say, hopefully she lives, learns and moves on,” Ehtra said as she noted down what she had been told. “In my long experience with temperamental women, however – I doubt it.”

“As a, somehow, less temperamental woman, got no faith in it either.”

John could only let out a long, weary, agreeing sigh.