Meeting Zaine, Petris, and Lucilia.

Over the next several days I continued to add little bits of knowledge to my mental boxes, mostly about demons. Small details about their origins, history, social behaviors, and even their physiology. One particularly interesting note was their lack of waste. Demons evidently did not defecate and did not need to urinate.

At first, I believed the lack of defecation to be something about the demonic physiology itself until I realized I had not done so either nor had I needed to since I had arrived. This led me to believe it was something to do with their food instead, since I had also been eating it. The fact that I was drinking water may have been the only reason I needed to pee, as far as I knew, demons didn’t actually need to drink water. I had discovered these things only after asking Ivy where I could relieve my bladder.

Since she had no such facilities because demons did not need them, she directed me to the bath instead and told me that since a stream flowed through it and her magic was cleansing the water constantly, it wouldn’t be an issue. Still, it felt a little strange to just pee openly in the middle of a bath.

Ivy had also off-handedly mentioned that demons generally don’t urinate unless they want to, which was generally rare and tied to sexual situations. She mentioned that Vixilica often fielded clients of that nature, as she was into that sort of thing. I had trouble deciding if this information was more than I wanted to know but filed it away in one of my boxes just in case anyway.

Another useful piece of information to know was that demons did not frequently change their outfits even if they were able to. They were generally very satisfied with a single look for many days at a time before becoming bored. While this had been useful for me, given that I only had one single outfit to work with at the moment, I did not share their complacency. My robe was beginning to itch, and I was definitely growing more than a little bored with it. I was glad to know that tomorrow was one of the days the brothel stayed closed, I planned to use that time to visit a tailor who could help whip me up a new outfit.

The final piece of information I had found to be extremely useful was the knowledge that Ivy had been different around me recently. She had grown much less reserved, far more relaxed, and even a little humorous. It seemed that not only was she growing more comfortable with the idea of me taking over the Scarlet Tail, she was also becoming an actual friend.

This exact state of being was exemplified best in our current situation. We were seated together on one of the sofas in the main lounge, about an hour and a half away from opening the doors, chatting and gently cuddling. I had also discovered truly just how amazing her collar’s stipulation was, and I had grown much bolder around her thanks to our blossoming friendship. So, in truth we weren’t simply cuddling, I had an arm around her shoulders and my hand was tucked comfortably into her corset, gently kneading and squeezing her soft and smooth violet breast.

“You’ve been a quick learner so far, Silus,” Ivy said, “I think you’ll do just fine. The fact that you didn’t actually know how to write Abyssal was somewhat of a setback, but you’re picking up on that pretty quickly as well.”

Ah yes, another thing I learned. Evidently while I could read and understand abyssal just fine, I had no actual idea how to write it, so Ivy had been teaching it to me.

“To be fair, It would make sense that I’d be able to write it if I could read it.”

“Well, for demons it isn’t quite that way. We spawn being able to understand and read it, but not write it. That much must be taught by those who know. But the fact that this is also the case for a human like you is definitely a mystery.”

That was an interesting piece of information. I puzzled over it as I gave Ivy’s nipple an idle yet sharp pinch.

She gasped in response, “You know, I must admit, I would not normally expect a human to be as comfortable with the idea of courting demons as you seem to be. Knowing what little I do about the human world; I would expect you to be much more hesitant or even afraid.”

“Honestly, it’s just not my instinct to be afraid of any of you. Perhaps it has something to do with how human most of the demons around here look, but I am beginning to believe I may have had something to do with demons even before I came here. The book I came here with…” on the nightstand next to Ivy’s bed, I knew by pure intuition, “… I believe is used for malcantment magic. Mel told me that’s the school of magic dealing with demons. Combined with the fact that I know arithmetic makes me think I may have been a mage-in-training in the human world, and malcantment may have been my specialization.”

Ivy tapped her chin thoughtfully, “An interesting thought. I don’t expect you made it very far into your studies, though.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked as I slid my hand across her cleavage to her other breast and gave it an idle squeeze.

“Well, the whole foundation of that school of magic is binding demons to you. A malcanted bond lasts until the mage dies, and you are very much alive. If you had managed to bind any demons to yourself, where are they?”

That was a good point, “Could they have died?” I asked.

Ivy shrugged, “That would be unlikely, but only as unlikely as you being here at all. A demon bound by malcantment wouldn’t die unless it was here in Abyssia when it was struck down. If it was struck down in the human world it would simply return here.”

“So, either I never got good enough at malcantment to bind anything to me or they all died while I was here but before I lost my memory.” I summarized.

“Exactly.”

An image flashed into my mind briefly, the pale green flames in the forest. The woman. Was she bound to me? In the dreams she spoke like she was still alive, just waiting for me. But where was she?

The doors to the brothel opened. This surprised me for a couple reasons, firstly, up until this point the doors had never been opened without the command of Ivy, and secondly, the doors had never been opened from the outside before, only from the inside by Dekkan. And the gruff ifran was sitting, perhaps napping, on his usual chair next to the door. This was a jarring enough event that I was knocked completely away from my current thought.

A trio of omen entered the lounge, a tall man flanked on both sides by a pair of women, his hands firmly planted on their rears. He had an athletically muscular frame that I could clearly see due to him wearing only a white open vest on his top half. His bottom half was thankfully completely concealed by a pair of black leather pants and similarly colored boots, but both were tight against his skin. He had a number of dark red markings across his olive-colored skin, and his shoulder-length hair was an almost blindingly vivid shade of scarlet. His eyes shared a similar color to his hair, and they immediately searched the room until they settled on Ivy next to me.

The two omen to either side of him were totally topless and naked aside from the black panties they wore and the collars around their necks. I noted with interest that the raven-haired one to the left had the same message inscribed on her collar as Ivy’s own: top half free use. The other, belonging to a tawny-haired girl who appeared much shyer, had no such message, or any message for that matter.

“Ivy, just the gal I wanted to see,” the man said and began walking toward us, leading the two omen women by their asses as he went.

“Master,” Ivy said.

I blinked. Here he was, I was finally meeting Ivy’s master, the man she had collared herself to. I felt inclined to pull my hand out of her top, but the very moment I made a move to slip it out, Ivy did the most curious thing. She suddenly puffed her chest out, tightening the space between the corset and her flesh and while it didn’t trap my hand there, it did stop it from being retreated. She wanted me to keep it there.

“How are you doing?” he asked grinning in a way that looked totally fake, “And who is this lovely lady?” he added with narrowed eyes and a sultrier tone. This was accompanied by the movement of his hand, which got removed from the raven-haired omen and steadily moved toward my chest.

Completely on reflex and without even a moment’s hesitation, I brought my free hand up to slap his away, making my stance on the idea of him just molesting me without even asking very clear.

For the briefest moment, I saw a vein pop on his rather prominent forehead at the gesture, though he never stopped smiling. The raven-haired omen gasped and shot me a **** glare, while the blonde omen just had a shocked expression on her face.

“Silus Serpentis,” I replied.

“A new whore?” the man asked Ivy, putting the slightest hint of venom on the last word with a clear intent to make it sting. I already hated this man more than any I had met so far, and I was beginning to get increasingly annoyed with people immediately assuming that I was a whore.

I replied before Ivy could, I was not going to be bullied, “No, the new madam-in-training.”

He shot me a look, clearly upset that I had answered instead of the person he asked directly. He clearly didn’t like me either and that was just fine by me.

“Silus, this is my master, Zaine. Zaine, this is my new apprentice.”

Zaine, even the name struck me as pompous. Now that I was more than comfortable with how I felt about this man, I made a quiet effort to actually begin groping Ivy’s chest in earnest, making it very visually apparent what I was doing. If this guy had been anyone else, even just a hint of a decent person, I may have felt bad for blatantly abusing the permission Ivy’s collar granted. As it stood, I was more than happy to rub it in his face that I was one of the people who was taking advantage of it and quite frequently.

This gesture did not go unnoticed, and I saw the vein pop again before he replied, “My apologies.” His eyes kept glancing down and over to the movement my hand was making as it roughly kneaded Ivy’s chest, but he maintained composure to his credit.

I smiled slyly, “Do not worry, it’s a common enough occurrence that people mistake my pride in my appearance for an open invitation. I’m glad that things have been made clear.” I put the slightest hint of emphasis on this last phrase, hoping he would pick up on what I was truly referring to. I pinched one of Ivy’s nipples for good measure, eliciting a gasp.

“Indeed,” Zaine replied.

“Why are you here?” Ivy asked. Her tone made it apparent that Zaine showing up like this was not a common occurrence.

“I came to have a chat with you in private, would you mind us going up to your room?”

I pinched Ivy’s nipple one more time before slipping my hand out of her top so she could stand up.

“Very well, I will be right back, Silus,” she nodded to me and began walking through the lounge toward the stairs leading to the second floor with her master. This left me alone with the two rather gorgeous women that Zaine apparently also had collared.

“Well,” I began, breaking the somewhat awkward silence as I stood up, “may as well introduce yourselves.

“I’m Petris,” the raven-haired omen said, glaring at me with a pair of fierce pink eyes. Her form was slender and petite. She was short for an omen, and her chest was modest like my own, probably even smaller, but her nipples were perky and large. Her hair was done into a very tight ponytail that was long enough to reach her butt. Aside from the collar, she was also wearing various golden jewelry, including a pair of gold nipple rings.

I turned to the other girl expectantly, observing the differences in her form. Her skin was slightly more tanned than the other with light freckling in certain spots, and by contrast she was much more voluptuous. Her breasts were fairly large and topped with cute pink nipples. Her gravity-defying orbs were not the only amazing feature of her body however, as her thighs were thick and meaty, and looked soft to the touch. Her hair was wavy and a little messy, just held together in a loose bun on the top of her head, some of the wavy locks falling over her piercing white eyes. Unlike Petris, the only jewelry she wore was a single necklace that had a black chain, possibly shadesteel, and a bright green emerald hanging just above her cleavage. Something about that necklace captivated me, it was beautiful.

“Don’t bother waiting for her to reply, she can’t talk; her name is Lucilia,” Petris explained. “Master Zaine just picked her up the other day, she can’t even write.”

“I see,” I said, nodding, but not being able to turn away from her. She was gorgeous to me, and I felt rather intense jealousy at the idea that someone like Zaine owned her. She looked so shy; it was frankly a wonder why she would approach him. There was something else, too, something in the way she was looking at me.

“By the way,” Petris began in an uppity tone, “don’t think I didn’t notice the way you were blatantly disrespecting my Master. You even slapped him; you should learn to know your pl—!”

She was stopped by two of my fingers and my thumb suddenly being shoved into her mouth and grabbing her tongue. It was soft and moist.

“Wah!?” she looked absolutely livid now, but also confused. I responded by lightly tapping the fingers of my other hand against the metal plate of her collar. Top half free-use.

“Direct your complaints to your owner,” I said before turning back to the other, “Lucilia, was it? It’s nice to meet you. I’d offer to shake your hand, but frankly I wouldn’t put it past your Master to consider even such a platonic gesture to be a violation of collar etiquette.”

She shook her head lightly as if to banish my concerns. But she continued to keep her eyes level on mine. It seemed like she was desperately trying to communicate something to me, something she only wanted me to know. Having Korivia’s mind-reading powers would have come in handy right about now.

“Mrrg…phhh,” the sounds Petris was making distracted me briefly, and I turned back to her, returning the furious glare she was giving me with my own half-smile as I squeezed and played with her tongue. I even reached up with my free hand to grip one of her nipple rings and tugged it.

“Honestly I’m not sure what either of you see in that guy. He’s clearly more interested in the status of being a ‘master’ than actually treating you with any decency,” I said.

Petris’ cheeks were flushed, but whether it was from anger or actual arousal now that I was playing with her nipple, I couldn’t tell. Her growls of anger were even starting to take on more of a moaning quality.

“He must have tricked you,” I concluded, but then looked at Petris, “okay maybe not you, but you and Ivy for sure,” I directed my attention to Lucilia. “Ivy isn’t really the type to go for people like him. Then again, I’ve only known her for a handful of days, and I’ve only known Zaine for a matter of minutes, so what do I know?”

Lucilia was just giving me that stare again. Clearly, she wanted me to know something, but she didn’t want Petris to know it, so I kept going in stride so as not to give her away. I did try to give her a sly wink in the hopes that she would know her efforts weren’t going unnoticed. She did seem to relax a little after I did.

“Off-topic, but you are both quite lovely. I’ll admit I might be a little jealous of the man.” I tugged again on Petris’ nipple ring. I had half a mind to urge her down onto her knees to have her mouth filled with something a little more substantial, but I was approached by Melandra.

“Hello Silus,” she yawned, clearly having just finished sleeping, “oh, is Zaine here today?” She asked eyeing the other two.

“Indeed,” I replied and nodded to the stairs, “he’s chatting with Ivy in private. He’s a real piece of work, that one.”

“Hm, well that might be unfortunate,” Melandra replied.

“How so?” I hadn’t stopped molesting Petris’ tongue, I still wasn’t ready for her to start talking again. Her moans of anger/pleasure were much cuter anyway.

“Usually when that happens, we have to close up the bordello that day because he takes Ivy home with him, and there’s nobody managing things.” She scratched the back of her head, “I sort of hope that doesn’t happen, Eva has been saving up to get a new necklace and has been really excited for it. She just needed today’s income to be able to afford it.”

I stroked my chin, “That would be pretty disappointing.”

Just then, I saw Ivy and Zaine coming back down the stairs. Zaine looked satisfied and Ivy looked livid.

“All right ladies, we’re heading home,” Zaine commanded across the room, both Petris and Lucilia turning to look in his direction.

I decided to make pointed eye contact with Zaine before I let go of Petris’ tongue, “Thanks for letting me have my way with Petris here.”

“I gave you no such permission,” Zaine said, his satisfied look turning once again to anger.

As a response, I only tapped on her collar’s metal plate again, “Have a nice day.” I said in my most patronizing tone.

Petris was shooting me a furious glare, but clearly didn’t want to speak out of turn while her master was nearby, so she just walked over to his side and pouted with an upturned chin as the three newcomers left the building.

Ivy stayed behind, but her expression was grim, “I’m afraid he has asked me to return to his home.”

“Aw, Eva will be disappointed to hear that,” Melandra said solemnly.

“Perhaps,” Ivy made fairly intense eye contact with me. “How are you feeling, Silus?

“I feel pretty good, actually. I really don’t like Zaine much at all, though,” I felt comfortable saying this around Ivy because of how close we’d grown, but also because I got the distinct impression, she didn’t like him much either at this point.

“I am beginning to understand the sentiment more and more as time passes,” Ivy admitted with an exasperated sigh, “and this is the second time he has gone and accepted a collar without telling me since I have been in his care. And he knows perfectly well how much I prefer to be in the loop about that, even if it isn’t really my place to demand he tell me.”

So, that explained why she wanted me to keep my hand in her top, she wanted to show him just how upset she was.

“In any case, I asked how you feel because I must heed his command and I want to know if you are feeling confident.”

“You want me to run the place while you’re gone?” I asked.

She nodded.

I did not hesitate in the least as I smiled and said, “Leave it to me, Ivy.” I noticed that Melandra looked much happier about this idea.

Ivy smiled slightly and said, “Good, I’ll let you keep the full share, it’s only fair. And if things go smoothly, I might be willing to give you something extra.” She winked at me before stepping away and out of the doors.

It looked like this was going to be my first time on my own. On the one hand I was nervous as I had no idea how this would go. On the other hand, I was excited, but not just because I’d get to show Ivy what I was worth, but also because I had an opportunity to test out my own method and see how it would go.