Week 1: Diona's Date, Part 2

The party, now down one maid and one shortstack, followed Sera as the side path from the dining hall merged with the main path from the garden. Aífe recognized the path that they were taking as the same one she and Mallory had taken on their date earlier in the week. While it would take another 10 minutes or so of walking to reach the lake where the laundry staff worked, it appeared that Cecilia was fortunate—Sera led them down a side path that branched off shortly past the treeline. They walked in twos down the narrower cobblestone path until they came upon a quaint, white chapel a minute or so later. Placed in the center of a small clearing, it was surrounded by a field of wildflowers in various colors. As they were hardly expecting a normal chapel, their guards were up as Sera swung the doors wide open.

The inside was… a chapel. While they’d been expecting some sort of gaudy homage to the universes most depraved kinks or some bizarre shrine to Aífe filled with nude statues of the goddess the church was devoted to, it seemed fairly normal. An aisle ran between two sets of pews, covered with a green runner trimmed in gold. The pews themselves were made of a solid, dark wood and included cushions for both the seat and backrest in the same green as the aisle runner. The room was illuminated by soft candlelight emitting from wall sconces and two small chandeliers, broken up by multicolored sunlight filtering through stained glass windows—a set of four on either side. At the end of the aisle was a plain altar, the only adornment being a gold fleur de lis on its front. Off to the side at the far end of the sanctuary, they could see a door leading to a back room.

“Wow. This place is beautiful.” Elise was the first to comment. Most of the others were similarly impressed, save for Cecilia, who was determined to maintain her air of irritability.

“Hold on—what’s that?” Aoba suddenly asked, her voice tinged with concern and embarrassment, having been the first to notice what the stained glass windows actually depicted. “Is that… us?!”

Their attention drawn more closely to the windows, they saw different scenes displayed on each one—Erica embracing Aífe on the bed in the Lily Suite, Aoba surrendering to the loving caress of her Mistress’ fingers on that same bed, Cecilia’s breasts exposed in the sauna as Aífe looks on in shock, and Mallory and Aífe masturbating as they gazed into each other’s eyes. On the other side, Elise stood in nothing but her robe and hat as flames danced harmlessly along her naked flesh and Aria flashed her dark blue nipples at Aífe in the arcade. Only Diona and Natalie’s windows were different, both only showing how the contestant looked when they were first introduced on the show. While the finer details couldn’t be shown in the rough, geometric shards of glass, each window was clearly displaying a scene of intimacy between that contestant and her Mistress.

“Beautiful, aren’t they?” Sera beamed as she made her way down the aisle, brushing her hand along the polished surface of the altar. “This building isn’t solely dedicated to Lady Aífe, but to the love that blossoms between her and each of you. I felt it fitting to show important moments in each of your relationships with her. I’ll be sure to update them as you make more and more wonderful memories together. Why, perhaps I’ll turn them into a slideshow once I have enough for each of you.” She had a warm, happy expression on her face. “I’d also thought about including a life-size, nude marble statue of Lady Aífe on the altar, but I thought that might’ve been too much.” The subject of the hypothetical statue silently agreed with the assessment, glad to not be **** to stare at a marble rendition of her own tits.

“Great, so I have to stare at pictures of Aífe fucking everyone all day?” Cecilia seethed.

“You get to stare at pictures of Lady Aífe fucking everyone all day.” Sera corrected. “Or rather, you would if you didn’t have other duties to attend to. When you don’t have anyone seeking your counsel, they mainly involve keeping this place clean and watering the flowers outside, but I’ll leave a more detail list on the desk in your office. Once you’re done, you can gaze at these windows as much as you’d like.”

“So I clean the place and then spend any time left in my shift just twiddling my thumbs?”

“The time you spend here once your tasks are finished is yours to do with as you please.” Sera explained. “Use it to plan your dates, catch up on reading, or even take a nap if you wish—so long as you remain on the chapel premises and don’t break anymore of the show’s rules, you have free reign.”

“So she has to stay here for most of the day?” Aífe asked, showing some sympathy for her harem member. “That’s a lot of time to spend all alone—isn’t that too harsh?”

“Just because she must remain here doesn’t mean that she has to be alone.” Sera pointed out. “Anyone is free to visit, and she’s also allowed to leave for the hour that she takes her lunch break. If any of you are that worried about her, simply take some time out of your schedule to stop by.” Sera checked her watch. “Now then, your shift just started, Miss Pine, let’s get out of your way so you can get accustomed to your new position. Come along, now.” Sera grabbed everyone’s attention, drawing them from whatever they had been focusing on. Erica was looking her own window up and down, skeptically. Aoba had been looking down in embarrassment while trying not to think about how hot she found it to have that moment on display for everyone to see. Mallory was in a similar boat, trying to avoid making eye contact with both Aífe and Natalie. Elise had simply chosen to shut her eyes, both to avoid seeing her own window again, as well as avoid accidentally staring at any of the others. Aria, for what it was worth, was relaxing on one of the pews, not particularly perturbed by any of this, and Natalie was comforting Mallory while trying not to sneak too many glances at the window depicting the brunette’s mutual masturbation session with Aífe.

“Right.” Aífe sighed, looking toward Cecilia. “Good luck with your shift, I guess. Maybe I’ll see you at lunch and you can tell me about it.” Her offer of mealtime companionship seemed to have little effect on the other girl’s mood.

“Sure, whatever.” Cecilia grumbled. “Just get going, already.”

As they filtered out of the doors to the chapel, Sera stopped, holding Aífe back as well while she turned to address Cecilia one last time.

“One last thing before we leave you.” Sera began to chastise. “During your shift, you are an employee of the Lily Garden. Employees are to refer to her as ‘Lady Aífe.’ Understood?” Aífe started to protest, to say that that wasn’t necessary, but Sera held up a hand to stop her. Cecilia fumed for a moment, her face bright red, before correcting her prior farewell.

“Fine.” She said through gritted teeth. “Goodbye, Lady Aífe.”

“We’ll call it a work in progress.” Sera remarked as the doors closed behind her, leaving Cecilia to her duties. “As for you all,” She addressed Aífe and the other contestants, “you’re, of course, free to do as you please for the rest of the day. Except for you, Lady Aífe, do remember that you need to be back in your suite at 5 for your date—even if you haven’t seen Miss Diona by then.” Before she could depart, a raised hand caught her eye.

“We almost forgot about guessin’ what our rooms do again.” Natalie spoke up, face flushing slightly as everyone turned to face her out of reflex.

“Breakfast already ended, but I suppose I can hear your guess.” Sera smiled. “So, any hypothesis as to the effects of the Hibiscus Suite? Or were you hoping that someone else would take their turn today?”

“I’ve got an idea, but I want to wait on it another day or so.” Natalie answered, wanting to see if her date with Aífe the next day would confirm or deny her suspicions. “If someone else wants to take a shot, you’re more than welcome.”

“Aria is the one who brought it up yesterday.” Elise pointed out. “You ended up letting Mallory give her guess then, so did you want to take your turn now?”

“Nah.” The alien shook her head. “Like I said, I’ve only got a vague idea. You got any clue, Aoba?”

“Um…” The oni paused as she wracked her brain for anything that felt different with her since she came here. There was only one real thing she could think of, but it did certainly stand out to her. “Does our suite make you braver? Or… more confident maybe?” She fidgeted with her hands, blushing at the memories of what she did on her date with Aífe. “The things I did the other day… let’s just say that there were some things that I wouldn’t normally have the courage to do.” A couple of the others could only think to themselves, yeah, no shit—we saw the window in there, or something to that effect.

“I’m beginning to think that I might need to loosen my standards for how close any of you need to be.” Sera rubbed her forehead. “I do really dislike having to tell you ‘close, but not quite.’” She pondered for a moment before giving in. “Oh well, it doesn’t particularly hurt anything to tell you. While ‘courage’ and ‘confidence’ are reasonable guesses, the more accurate explanation is ‘drive.’”

“Drive?” The two residents of the Sakura Suite asked in unison.

“Yes.” Sera nodded as she elaborated. “The sakura blossoms symbolize transience, like the fleeting springtime of one’s youth. They push the occupants of that suite to be more focused on one of their goals, and more driven to achieve it. For Miss Aria, it was likely the goal to learn as much about the Lily Garden as reasonably possible, leading to her breakthrough in how to quickly find all of the rooms she hadn’t been to yet.”

“So mine…” Aoba gulped.

“If I had to wager, it would be ‘I really want to wow Aífe on my date.’” Sera smiled as she cast a sideways glance toward the girl in question. “What do you think, Lady Aífe? Was she successful?”

“Um…” Aífe blushed at being put on the spot like that. “Yeah, I think ‘wowed’ would be pretty accurate. It was a version of Aoba I’d never seen before. I never expected her to be so… forward.”

“I knew I was acting weird!” Aoba curled into a ball, trying to cover her now crimson cheeks with her hands. “I’ve been freaking out all week! There was no way I’d normally do all that stuff!”

“Please, dear, don’t get the wrong idea.” Sera walked over and leaned down to place a hand on Aoba’s shoulder. “The Sakura Suite wouldn’t push you to do anything you wouldn’t want to do in the first place. All it did was give you the determination to see your desires through.” She stood back up to finish her explanation. “As for what would have happened if someone without any goals were to stay there, then much like the Rose Suite, they would experience some minor side effects, such as restlessness or potentially very minor anxiety.”

“These side effects seem really harsh.” Aífe frowned. “I mean, seriously? This one gives the people in it a literal psychological disorder.”

“Well, unlike real anxiety, this is solved incredibly easily.” Sera assured them. “All you need is a goal to achieve—any goal, really. It can be as small as ‘I’m going to do ten push-ups each day’ or ‘I’m going to start reading a new book this week.’ So long as you have something for the room’s magic to target, there’s no risk of any side effects.”

“Still, with all these effects, it makes me feel even guiltier for getting the best suite in the building.” Aífe grimaced. “Hell, I’d almost say just screw it and let everyone stay in the Lily Suite—just one big slumber party. There’s plenty of room for it up there.”

“I’d be absolutely delighted!” Sera beamed. “I’ll get to tell Shar that my season is going to beat hers for the ‘daily orgy’ speedrun. Less than a week in and my season’s Mistress already wants her harem with her every night.” Her words were followed by a beat of silence.

“So, anyway, make sure to pick reasonable goals if you’re going to stay in the Sakura Suite, everybody.” Aífe quickly reversed course, eliciting laughter from the others.

“Well, as delightful as this has been, I’ll leave you all to your free time.” Sera curtsied before vanishing with her magic.

“So, what’s everyone going to do today?” Erica asked, scanning the assembled group as they started walking back to the main building.

“Oh, I know!” Mallory excitedly chimed in. “We’ve hardly used the lounge, and I remember hearing that they have board and card games—this would be a good chance to hang out with everyone—or almost everyone, I guess. After all, we haven’t spent a whole lot of time together as a group, outside of meals, at least.”

“That sounds fun. Great idea, Mallory.” Elise warmly smiled. She made a point to have a family game night back at home at least once every couple of weeks—herself, her daughter, her mother, and her father on the occasions that he was visiting town while he wasn’t out of the country for work.

“I’m down.” Aífe agreed. “Just not Clue. I don’t know why, but I’m really not in the mood for Clue.” The others couldn’t put their finger on a reason, themselves, but they all seemed to agree on that point.