Chapter 9

- Oliver

Claudia moved around our small kitchen with the practiced efficiency of someone who had spent half her life in restaurant environments, pulling vegetables from the fridge and lining them up on the cutting board with the kind of methodical focus that made me feel vaguely inadequate just watching her. There were bell peppers, a couple of tomatoes, an onion, a zucchini, some other things I couldn't name from where I was sitting. She'd changed out of her work clothes into a loose grey t-shirt and those high-waisted jeans she wore around the house, and her dark hair was down for once, falling past her shoulders in soft waves.

For once she was staying home for the night, leaving Le Petit Château to function without her. We would usually use these rare evenings to spend quality time together, but tonight, my mind was miles away.

She was saying something to me. I could hear the rhythm of her voice, the particular cadence that meant she was telling me a story rather than asking me something, the way her tone dipped and rose with whatever she was narrating. I caught fragments. A name, maybe. Something that made her laugh at her own punchline. She glanced back at me over her shoulder with that expectant look that meant she'd just said something funny and wanted confirmation that it landed.

I nodded vaguely.

The meeting was tomorrow. Collapsed Star Interactive. An actual publisher, not some small outfit, not just another marketing department that wanted to dip toes in the gaming industry, but a real publisher with a real catalog of games that people actually played and talked about. They had reached out to us. They had played the prototype and reached out to us.

What if they didn't like the team? What if the prototype had been tested by just a single person there and everyone else hated it? What if they had already moved on, already signed someone else, and tomorrow was just a courtesy meeting they'd forgotten to cancel? What if the contract terms were so bad that we couldn't reasonably accept them, and we'd have to walk away? What if we couldn't walk away because we had no money left and had to accept whatever they put in front of us? What if the whole thing fell apart over something stupid, like Jonas saying something anxious and off-putting, or Cael being weird?

"Oliver."

More silence from my end. My head was too loud to register anything else.

"Oliver!"

Not enough.

Then movement in my peripheral vision. I looked up just in time to see Claudia yank her tank top up to her chin, freeing her breasts with a bounce that finally, mercifully, short-circuited whatever doom spiral my brain had been running. She held the pose for exactly two seconds, long enough for it to register, then dropped the fabric back down with a sigh that was half exasperation, half amusement.

"There he is," she said, a giggle escaping despite her best attempt at looking stern. "Welcome back to Earth. I've been talking to you for like five minutes. Is it the meeting with the publisher that's making you freak out like this?"

"I'm not freaking out," I said, which was a lie, and we both knew it. I rubbed my face. "Okay, maybe a little. It's like my brain is stuck in a loop. I keep going over every possible outcome..."

Claudia set down the knife and wiped her hands on a dish towel before walking over to me. She wrapped her arms around my waist and pressed her cheek against my chest, and I felt some of the tension in my shoulders release just from the contact. She smelled like garlic and onions, the aroma of whatever she was preparing for dinner lingering on her skin.

"The game is good, Oliver," she said firmly, her voice muffled slightly against my shirt. "It's really good. You know this. Your testers know this. And at least one publisher was smart enough to figure it out, which means others will too." She pulled back to look up at me, her brown eyes steady and warm. "If it doesn't pan out with Collapsed Star, you'll find another publisher. Or you'll find some other way to get the funding. Or hell, you release in early access and let the players fund the rest. You've got options."

"You're not really supposed to use early access as a way to fund the rest of development," I said, the game developer in me bristling at the suggestion. "That's not what the program is for. It's meant for games that are already funded but want player feedback during the final stretch." I paused. "Though that doesn't stop most studios from doing exactly that."

"See? Options."

"Yeah, but a publisher would be cleaner. They'd handle marketing, give us a way bigger audience. And Collapsed Star specifically has some incredible games under their belt. Having their name attached to ours would mean something."

Claudia studied my face for a moment, then tilted her head with a small smile. "Is there anything I can do to keep your mind off this for a while?"

My eyes drifted down from her face to her chest, still remembering the flash from moments ago. She caught the look immediately and laughed.

"After dinner," she clarified, already pulling away and heading back to the cutting board. "Unless you want us both to starve."

"I mean," I said, leaning against the counter with what I hoped was a charming grin, "my idea of fun is not exactly mutually exclusive with you preparing dinner."

Claudia's knife froze mid-reach for the zucchini. She turned to face me slowly, her eyes narrowing even as the corner of her mouth twitched upward. "Oliver Moore, don't you dare do what I think you're about to…"

"Find any suggestion I make to you completely obvious and normal," I said, my voice calm and deliberate, "no matter how absurd. Be unable to see anything unusual about your own actions. And forget about this command."

Claudia's mouth was still open, the warning she'd been forming dying on her lips. "Jesus," she breathed, her jaw tightening. I could see it happening, that brief flicker of resistance, the part of her that was allowed to decide for herself pushing back against the command in that split second, deciding whether to enter the cage or not.

I smirked, watching her, genuinely curious. Then her eyes went glassy, just for a heartbeat, like a screen flickering during a reboot. She blinked once, twice, and her expression cleared. The tension left her face entirely, replaced by mild confusion.

"Sorry, what were you saying?" she asked, picking the knife back up and reaching for the zucchini.

"We were talking about the publisher," I said, watching her face carefully.

Claudia frowned for a second, her brow creasing as if trying to fit a puzzle piece that was almost but not quite the right shape. Then it passed, smoothed over like water closing behind a stone. "Right, the publisher. Well, I'll make us dinner, and then we can do whatever you want after." She pointed the tip of the knife at me. "I'll even let you show me those old Star Trek episodes you keep going on about."

I whistled, long and low. "Star Trek? Damn, you really are ready to make sacrifices tonight."

"Don't push it," she said with a grin, turning back to the cutting board. "I'm doing this for you, not because I suddenly care about Klingon politics or whatever."

"I mean it's usually more about the politics of the Federation, though we do get to..."

"Dinner first," she cut me off, already reaching for the bell pepper.

I leaned against the counter, watching her work. Her movements were fluid, precise. Even at home, she moved like every action had been choreographed.

"You know," I said casually, "you should get naked. You'd probably be way more comfortable cooking without clothes on."

Claudia's hand stopped mid-reach for the zucchini. "Yeah, that's…" she started, the agreement leaving her mouth before the rest of her brain caught up. I could practically see the gears turning behind her eyes, not questioning whether it was true, because to her, of course it was true, but searching for the reason why. "Actually, yeah. The kitchen gets pretty hot with the stove on, and I always end up getting stuff on my clothes anyway. Easier to just shower after than to deal with stains."

Despite the mess at Le Petit Château back when I'd commanded the cooks to work naked, her brain seemed to have taken the 'no matter how absurd' clause to heart.

She set the knife down and pulled her tank top over her head in one smooth motion, then shimmied out of her jeans, stepping out of them and kicking them toward the living room in a practiced little move. Underwear followed without hesitation. She turned back to the cutting board completely naked, picking up the zucchini and running it under the faucet as if this was how she'd always prepared dinner.

I couldn't look away. There was something impossibly hot about watching Claudia like this, her olive skin catching the warm light of the kitchen, the curve of her hip brushing against the counter as she shifted her weight, the casual way she peeled the zucchini with long, precise strokes of the peeler like she wasn't standing there completely bare. She wasn't performing. She wasn't posing. She was just cooking, and the absurd normality was what made it ten times more arousing than any deliberate attempt at seduction.

"You know what I think?" she said, not looking up from the zucchini. "I think you need to get out more. Meet new people."

"We go out plenty," I said, still very much enjoying the view. "We literally just spent last evening with Zoe and Marcus and Renee. And I spend all day every day with my team at the studio."

Claudia stopped peeling and turned to face me, the zucchini in one hand, the peeler in the other. "Oliver, that's not enough. You don't have much of a social life outside of your little bubble. And the time at the studio is work. Yeah, Blair and Jonas and Cael are your friends, but you don't see them outside of the office. You need more than that."

I sighed, running a hand through my messy hair. The last thing I wanted right now, on top of everything else spinning in my head, was to carve out more time from my already mentally exhausting schedule to socialize. Just thinking about it made me tired. Besides, I knew she had something else in mind. "Is this about the girl from the munch?" I asked, studying her face. "Sonia? Is this about how you think I should start dating other women?"

Claudia set the peeler down, the zucchini still in her hand. "Yes, it's also about that," she said, her voice taking on a firmer edge. "You're the owner of all women, Oliver. You're in an open relationship. And what do you do with all of that? You limit yourself to the occasional threesome with me and Renee."

Something hot and defensive flared in my chest. "You're the one who wants to date more people," I said, my voice sharper than I intended. "The only reason I'm even in an open relationship is because you were already in one when I first had sex with you at Le Petit Château. You were already with Renee."

"So?"

"So I could have made you leave her," I said, the words coming out before I could weigh them. "Back then. I could have kept you for myself. Made you exclusive."

Claudia's eyes flashed with a spark of real annoyance, the kind that cut through any playfulness. She jabbed the zucchini in my direction like an accusatory finger. "Yes, you could have. And yet you chose to free women. You chose to let us have a say in who we date and who we fuck. You did that knowing full well that I'm not the exclusive type, and you still wanted a life with me." She paused, then narrowed her eyes. "And you know what? You're full of shit, Oliver. Because before you freed everyone, when you were just starting to date me, you had absolutely no problem fucking other women left and right."

That stung, mostly because it was true. I opened my mouth, closed it. The hypocrisy was sitting right there in the open and I couldn't dress it up.

"So yes," she continued, her voice tight, "I'm frustrated. I've been patient. I've been waiting for you to get more comfortable with this so I can see other people too. Explore. Have fun. The way you got to before you decided to be noble about it."

I stared at her, jaw clenched, the irritation mixing with the arousal that hadn't gone away just because we were arguing. In fact, it seemed to burn even hotter now, the anger adding a sharp edge to my desire. She was standing there, naked, flushed with frustration, waving a zucchini at me, and I was simultaneously pissed off and incredibly turned on.

"You should shove that zucchini in your pussy," I growled.

Claudia stopped mid-breath. The annoyance was still on her face, but underneath it, something else was happening. I watched her look down at the vegetable in her hand, then back at me, then down again. She wasn't questioning whether she should. She was trying to figure out why she obviously should.

"I mean… it's already washed," she said slowly, her brow furrowing in concentration. She turned it over in her hand, examining it from a practical standpoint. "It would actually help soften it before cooking. Body heat and moisture..."

She spread her legs slightly, leaning her lower back against the counter for support, and brought the zucchini between her thighs. She pressed the tip against herself and immediately winced, shifting uncomfortably.

"It's… hold on," she muttered, adjusting the angle. She wasn't wet enough, her body not having received the memo that this was apparently a normal part of dinner preparation. She tried again, pushing more firmly, and managed to get the first inch or so inside before stopping with a frustrated huff.

"Get wet," I said.

Claudia didn't hesitate this time, more than happy to get some help with that issue. Her body responded instantly, her thighs glistening as arousal flooded through her on command. "Thanks," she muttered distractedly, the way you'd thank someone for passing the salt, her focus still clearly locked on the argument rather than what was happening between her legs. She adjusted the zucchini and pushed it inside herself with a slow, deliberate motion, her lips parting slightly as the thick vegetable slid in, stretching her open inch by inch. Her pussy was soaked now, slick enough that it went in smoothly, her inner walls gripping the green skin as she eased it deeper with a wet, obscene sound that echoed off the kitchen tiles.

"Anyway," she said, slightly breathless but determined to press her point, "the problem isn't me wanting to see other people. The problem is you being jealous."

"Yeah, I'm jealous," I admitted, not even trying to deny it. "That's obvious. And logical. And I think I've got pretty good reasons for it."

Claudia glanced down at the zucchini lodged inside her, then back at me with genuine confusion. "How long should I keep this in, do you think?"

"You should just fuck yourself with it until you cum," I said, my voice rougher than I intended, the sight of her making it very difficult to maintain any semblance of rational conversation.

She nodded, apparently satisfied with that answer, and began sliding the zucchini in and out of herself with slow, steady strokes. I noticed she didn't even bother searching for a justification this time. Maybe her brain had thrown in the towel on the whole "find a logical reason" project, overwhelmed by the accumulating absurdity.

"You being jealous is absurd," she continued, her voice hitching slightly as she found a rhythm. "I'm yours, Oliver. Literally. You own me."

"I own all women," I said, crossing my arms. "And all women, you included, are free to disobey me. You're free to leave me if you find someone you like better."

Claudia let out a frustrated groan that was only partially about the conversation. Her hand moved faster, the zucchini glistening with her arousal as she pumped it in and out, her hips rocking forward to meet each thrust. "That's so stupid," she panted, her cheeks flushed. "I'm non-monogamous. I love you. I'm not looking for someone to love like I love you. Maybe not even someone to love at all. Just some fun."

"Maybe not someone to love," I repeated, my eyes tracking the movement of her hand between her legs. "Which implies it's a possibility."

"Yes," she gasped, her free hand gripping the edge of the counter, knuckles whitening. "It's a possibility. But it wouldn't be the same. I can love multiple people at the same time, Oliver, for different reasons, in different ways. You'd remain my main partner. You're the one I want to live with." She paused to moan, her thighs trembling. "It's like… family. Or friends. You love different family members differently. You love different friends differently. Would you stop being best friends with Zoe just because you made a new friend?"

I uncrossed my arms, some of the tension leaving my shoulders. "No," I said quietly. "I wouldn't."

She was right, and I knew she was right. Claudia had never hidden who she was. She didn't see relationships the way I'd been raised to see them, as exclusive territories you defended with walls and moats. For her, love was more like a garden with room for different kinds of flowers. I just kept worrying that one of those flowers would turn out to be a weed that choked out everything else.

"I know you're worried," she managed, her words coming in short bursts now, her body arching as she fucked herself harder. "That's why… I want you to try. Date other girls. See if it works for you too. Because I want us both to be happy. You used to enjoy that freedom before, for a while."

"What if I try it again and I don't like it?" I asked, my voice smaller than I wanted it to be. "What if I'm just monogamous? Back then you and I weren't a serious thing yet."

"Back then you knew I couldn't leave you, because you had total control over me. You're worried about my side of it, not yours," Claudia said. She managed, somehow, to look at me softly despite the fact that she was actively masturbating with a vegetable in the middle of our kitchen. Her brown eyes found mine and held them with a tenderness that made my chest ache. "I love you, Oliver. If we try and you decide you don't want this to be open, I'll be monogamous for you. I would prefer not to be. But it's not a deal breaker. You're worth more to me than that freedom."

The knot in my stomach loosened. Not all the way, but enough that I could breathe again. "Okay," I said. "I'll consider it." I paused. "Let's try."

"Good," she started to say, but the word dissolved into a loud, shuddering moan, her head falling back as the zucchini hit a spot that clearly short-circuited whatever was left of her composure.

I smirked.

Claudia caught the look through half-lidded eyes. "Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked breathlessly. I said nothing, just kept smirking. Her expression shifted, suspicion creeping in around the edges of her arousal. "Oliver… what did you do to me?"

I maintained my innocent expression, which I'm sure was not convincing at all.

She kept fucking herself with the zucchini, her hips rolling against her hand, but her eyes were scanning now. She looked at the kitchen around her. At me. Down at her own naked body. At the counter. At the vegetables still waiting to be cut. Back at me. I could practically see her running a mental diagnostic, checking every system for anomalies.

"I'm cutting vegetables," she said out loud, like she was reading from a checklist. "I'm cooking dinner. I'm fucking myself with the zucchini. I'm talking to you about our relationship." She looked at me accusingly. "I don't know what you did!"

I laughed. I couldn't help it.

"Oliver Moore, what did you do and what is so funny?" she demanded, though the scolding was undermined by the fact that she was still actively pumping the zucchini in and out of herself, her voice cracking on the last word.

"How about you figure it out?," I challenged her, grinning.

She tried. God, she really tried. Her eyes swept the kitchen again, lingered on her own naked body, on the zucchini disappearing between her legs, on the pile of uncut vegetables on the counter. Everything checked out in her mind. Nothing unusual. Just a normal evening of cooking dinner in the nude while masturbating with produce.

"If you've made me unable to figure it out," she said, jabbing a finger at me even as her breath came in ragged gasps, "then it doesn't matter how hard I try, I'm not going to figure it out, you ass."

She mumbled something else, something about how I always pulled this kind of thing when she was trying to have a serious conversation, but the words melted into incoherence as her rhythm grew erratic, her hips snapping forward, her thighs shaking. I watched, transfixed, as her whole body tensed, her mouth falling open in a silent gasp before the orgasm crashed through her. She came hard, her back arching away from the counter, a strangled cry tearing from her throat as her legs nearly buckled. She caught herself on the counter with one hand, the other still gripping the zucchini between her thighs, her chest heaving as wave after wave rolled through her.

For a long moment, the only sound in the kitchen was her ragged breathing and the quiet hum of the refrigerator.

"So," I said, once she seemed capable of processing language again. "Still no idea what's going on?"

She shook her head weakly, still catching her breath. "Is it about me cumming? Because that makes sense too. I was fucking myself with the zucchini." She looked down between her legs at the vegetable in question, slick and glistening. "Obviously I was going to cum eventually."

"Return to normal," I said. "Remember everything."

The shift was instant. Claudia's eyes widened, clarity flooding back like someone had thrown open the curtains in a dark room. She stood there, still panting, still naked, still holding a zucchini that was halfway inside her, and the realization hit her all at once.

"You asshole!" she yelled, her face turning a shade of red I'd only seen on her a handful of times. She yanked the zucchini out of herself and held it up like exhibit A in a **** trial. "I was trying to cook! Oliver, the zucchini is ruined!" She looked at it with genuine dismay, then back at me with fire in her eyes. "I had no idea you were going to make me do that when I let your first command go through…"

"Okay, okay," I said, raising my hands in surrender. "I might have gone a bit far."

"A bit?" She stared at the zucchini again, then tossed it into the sink with a wet thud. "Dinner is ruined. I needed that for the recipe, Oliver. It was the main ingredient, and I only had one."

"I'm sorry," I said, and I meant it.

"It's unhygienic!"

"You washed it first," I protested weakly.

Claudia opened her mouth, closed it, then let out a long, defeated sigh. "I would prefer," she said, her voice measured in a way that told me she was choosing her words very carefully, "if you didn't make me put vegetables inside my pussy without asking me first."

But even as she said it, her eyes drifted back to the zucchini sitting in the sink, and I caught the blush deepening across her cheeks. Not just embarrassment. Something else. The realization of what she'd been doing so casually, so naturally, completely oblivious to how absurd it was, clearly doing something to her that she wasn't entirely comfortable admitting.

"I'm sorry," I said again, softer this time. "Really. I was pissed off and I took it too far." I paused, then added honestly, "I won't do that again without asking."

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a treacherous little voice reminded me that there had been a time when I wouldn't have needed to ask. When her preferences would have been irrelevant. When I could have done anything I wanted to any woman without consequence or complaint. I crushed the thought as soon as it surfaced, disgusted with myself for even entertaining it, let alone for the tiny flicker of nostalgia that came with it.

Claudia was already pulling her jeans back on, tugging her tank top over her head. She glanced at the cutting board, at the remaining vegetables that now lacked their key companion, and smirked. "Chinese or Japanese?"

I smirked back, grateful for the shift. "Thai?"

She nodded, already reaching for her phone on the counter. "You're cleaning up the kitchen," she said, not looking at me as she scrolled through delivery apps. "Since you caused that mess."

"It was a beautiful mess," I said, winking at her. "But yeah, I'll do it. Give me a minute."

I pulled out my own phone, opened my contacts, and scrolled until I found the name. Sonia. I turned the screen toward Claudia so she could see it.

She looked up from her delivery app, saw the name on my screen, and smiled. A real smile, warm and bright, the kind that crinkled the corners of her eyes and made the beauty mark near her lip shift upward. She didn't say anything. She didn't need to.

I started typing.

Hey there! This was chapter 9 of 4 Billion Toys 2. I'll be posting chapters here regularly, but if you want early access to the next chapters, feel free to support me on Patreon!

In the meantime, I'd be happy to hear your feedback and ideas for where to push the story. I've got the main storylines established already, but I've got more than enough room for suggestions ;)

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