Try to calm things down

Xabar doesn’t know what is going on, but having a screaming mother standing there is not doing much for his plans to get horizontal with Glynda. He decides to rely on the Compliance Spell to calm things down so he can get back to business.

“There’s no problem, is there, Mrs. Peterson,” he says, in a soothing voice. “There’s nothing to get upset about.”

“The bloody hell there isn’t!” retorted the enraged woman, still holding tightly to Blake’s ear. “I come out of the kitchen, finally ready to return to my home to put my feet up after slaving away all day, only to find this mealy-mouthed piece of goat dung emptying all my liquor! I confront him about it, and he informs me that it’s all just peachy because his ‘old buddy, old pal, dear chap’ Xabar said he could just help himself and drink up all he wanted to. And if that weren’t enough, he seemed to think he could just help himself to the cash box, as well!”

Xabar rolled his eyes. Blake had to go and complicate things, didn’t he? He looked at Blake for an explanation, but he was in no position to do anything other than try to keep himself from tipping over and further hurting his ear and his pride.

“So I come upstairs, certain there has been some misunderstanding,” continues the woman. “Surely no houseguest or mine would ever feel he has the right to offer away my liquor or my gold! But what do I find? I open the door, and the first sight to meet my eyes is the hairy arse of an ungrateful vagabond, preparing to help himself to my daughter and to deflower her under my own roof! Now, do you even want to try to explain yourself, or shall we dispense with the preliminaries and get right to the part where I serve up your pecker as an appetizer on tomorrow’s menu?”

“Mrs. Peterson, I understand your confusion, but you are making a big mistake!” said Xabar, in his most soothing voice. The Compliance Spell should have calmed her down a lot more, and he wonders how it could have worn down so rapidly from the last time he saw her.

“In the first place, Blake was pouring himself a drink, but he wasn’t stealing anything; he was just sparing you the trouble of having to do it yourself, knowing what a hard day you have had, and he was in your cash box because he was putting money in it to cover the cost of the drink. And as for what you think you saw when you came in here, well, you made an understandable mistake! I was merely showing Glynda the technique I used to save the life of a poor widow who fell through the ice at Jägman’s Pond last winter. She was nearly frozen when I pulled her out from under the ice, and only my quick thinking restored her body warmth. You probably heard about it; it was in all the papers.”

He was sorely tempted to also point out that his arse isn’t nearly all that hairy, and if she was going to be offering up his pecker on the menu, it certainly should be classified as a main course, not a mere appetizer. And as far as “deflowering” Glynda... Obviously she had a serious misconception of her daughter’s purity; the deflowering event was a tiny, distant thing in the rearview mirror. Wisely, however, he held his tongue on the latter points.

Mrs. Peterson took a couple of steps closer to Xabar. “Demonstrating a life-saving technique, were you? And when you saved this frozen old widow’s life, what were you doing with this?” Abruptly, she reached down with her free hand and grabbed hold of Xabar’s half-erect cock. “Taking her temperature, I assume?”

Xabar stiffened with apprehension. His plans included having his cock enveloped by the flesh of a Peterson woman right about now, but not this Peterson woman, and certainly not in a way that made him wonder if he was ever going to see his favorite body part again.

“Mother! Leave Xabar alone!” said Glynda, wide-eyed and frightened. “You act as if you had no idea we were seeing each other, but you gave him permission to stay with me in my room! What did you think we were doing?”

Mrs. Peterson keeps her eyes on Xabar’s as she answers her daughter. “He’s bewitched us somehow, Glynda. I don’t know how, but I’ll get to the bottom of it! Now get your clothes on and make yourself decent. I sent Gwendolyn to fetch a constable. I’m just trying to decide what he’ll find when he gets here — a couple of unlicensed magical deviants, or the bodies of a couple of common criminals whom we had **** but to kill in self defense.”

Glynda hurriedly gathers up her clothing as directed while Xabar thinks rapidly. He tries the Compliance Spell again, hoping something simpler will be easier for her to accept.

“Mrs. Peterson, Blake and I are so sorry. We want to sit down with you and make amends. That would be a much better way to deal with this, wouldn’t it? Quietly... Without making a fuss? You wouldn’t want bad publicity to come back and hurt business at your tavern, would you?”

The fiercity of her expression mellows very slightly. “Well, there is that,” she says, cautiously. She looks at Blake, whose pained expression explains why he has been unable to contribute anything of value to the conversation. “Can you behave yourself for a few minutes if I let go of you?”

“Absolutely. Unquestionable. Certainly. Whatever you say,” he replies.

“And you can let go of me, as well,” says Xabar, feeling some numbness in the top of his cock from lack of blood flow.

Mrs. Peterson scowls and releases her viselike grip. With a sigh of relief, Xabar retreats from her reach and gathers up his clothes and starts to dress.

He looks at Blake for an explanation and some help, but he is too busy nursing his ear to pay any attention.

“Mother, you didn’t really send Gwendolyn to get a constable, did you?” asks Glynda.

“I did,” replied the woman, “and these gentlemen — and I use that word loosely — had better do some quick explaining, or we’ll have their heads on display at the town square by this time tomorrow, and I’ll have myself a fine necklace, made out of their testacles.”

Xabar and Blake involuntarily puts their hands over their crotches as Xabar thinks quickly to find something to say or do that will get them out of this fix. He glances nervously at the door, realizing a constable could show up any minute.