Linza had requested to borrow the madame’s private area of the veranda, the same place that she had first met Grun, and the madame had obliged with a knowing smile.

Linza had arrived a bit early, wanting to be sure to be there first, and also too nervous to do much of anything else.

The sun-warmed breezes of the ocean rippled over the veranda and through her hair. That was much of why she’d wanted to do it here. The sun and the ocean lent her their expansive calm.

Had the day been stormy, she would have taken it as an omen and called off the whole thing. She still found herself ever so slightly wishing that a sudden squall might overtake the blueness of the sky and release her from what she was about to do. 

But just as the estate had no such rule against staff relationships, the sky did no such thing.

Tanyth arrived first. They wore a violet suit, their hair braided down and around one shoulder, strands loosed from the edges to frame their face. Linza suspected they had tapped into their masculine energies for assertiveness.

They looked more cheerful than Linza had expected, which either meant that they had not inferred her true purpose or that they had become much better at lying.

“Linza!” they said as they waved. They came to sit across from her, leaning back in their chair and looking unbothered. “I’ve missed you, this past week.”

“I had a lot of thinking to do,” she said.

“Did you reach any conclusions?” Their facade wavered. Despite their best efforts, they looked very interested in her response.

She hesitated, hoping that at least one element of the day’s timing would work in her favor. 

It did. Tanyth turned towards the sound of the door opening and to the sight of Grun ducking under the doorway, which did not admit his full height. He wore tailored trousers and no shirt, his hair caught up in a bun.

They looked at each other.

Then they looked at Linza.

Linza waved Grun over to sit down.

Tanyth’s facade slipped another inch, and they looked concerned. “I didn’t realize this was…”

Grun grinned smugly and folded his arms as he sat. He dwarfed the little chair, just like he dwarfed Tanyth. “I daresay that’s the point.”

“You know what’s happening?” Tanyth said.

“I reckon we are about to hear a verdict,” Grun said.

“A verdict? What about?”

“Well, she can’t very well tell us if you’re prattling, can she?” Grun met Linza’s eyes. It was a challenge. She held his gaze.

Tanyth glanced nervously between them.

Linza took a deep breath. She was regretting her decision to be sober for this. “What’s happening is… you’re on a date.”

“A date?!” Tanyth said. “Is someone— doesn’t that mean that someone—”

Grun still looked at her with his even eyes, his slight smile. He seemed to already understand.

“All three of us,” Linza said, trying to keep her voice steady.

“Like a competition?” Tanyth squeaked.

Grun laughed. “If it were a competition, you wouldn’t be here at all, little bird.”

Linza was nearly offended on Tanyth’s behalf, but Tanyth just looked startled. They were all request and no command. In any contest, Grun would dominate, it was true.

And that was the exact thing that Linza had been struggling with. If she put forward an ultimatum to the two of them, she knew that no matter what she asked, no matter what she clarified, Grun by his nature would seize the prize. Tanyth, by their nature, would defer.

It would be an experiment that undermined its goal by its very design.

Her primary mistake had been looking to a competitive evaluation for answers.

Linza cleared her throat. 

They both looked at her.

“We, all three of us, are here to go on a date with each other. To see… if we all get along. Together. The three of us.”

Grun’s grin deepened.

Tanyth pressed their fingers to their lips. “I’m still not quite sure I…”

Grun reached over and cupped Tanyth’s cheek in his hand. Tanyth’s hand fell to the table and their eyes turned fully up into Grun’s.

“I believe,” Grun said, “that the lady is asking if we can get along. Do you think we can get along?”

Tanyth nodded emphatically.

Grun leaned down and kissed them tenderly. They melted into his embrace.

Linza’s heart raced. This was all going so very much faster than she had expected. Was Grun mocking her? Yet, would she really have invited him here if she thought he would?

He broke the kiss after a moment, and Tanyth hung upon him.

He looked to Linza. “Now, I am sure you are making some very scientific observations,” Grun said.

Linza nodded.

“How do you feel? Jealous? Excited?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

“Hm, that means the experiment must continue.”

“Does the experiment continuing mean you’re going to kiss me again?” Tanyth said.

“Only if you want me to,” Grun said.

Tanyth threw their arms around Grun’s neck and pulled themselves up into him.

Grun caught their waist and pulled them close.

Linza was feeling very good about her decision to ask to borrow the private veranda.

Grun had been right that she was too quick to defer to another’s happiness. But what had halted her every attempt to follow his advice was that, in the end, there was not so crisp a line between others’ happiness and her own. She was right to cut out abuse from her life, and she would do better at it.

But she was also right to take Grun’s words and find her own way.

Because holy shit was this turning her on.

Tanyth was floating, basking in the glow of attentions finally requited.

Grun was hungry yet tender, his erection already throbbing under his trousers. Whether he did it for her enjoyment or Tanyth’s or for theirs both, Linza did not quite know or care. All her cares evaporated in the growing heat between the three of them.

It was Tanyth who broke the kiss next. They cupped Grun’s cheeks in their small hands and smoothed the edges of his beard. “This is… just yes… but I have to…”

They had the demeanor of a drunk needing a stop in the wash room, especially as they extricated themselves from Grun’s arms and stumbled onto the veranda. But then they threw themselves into Linza’s arms and pressed their lips against hers. 

Linza’s butterflies exploded into flight. It was the sudden vent of wants left unsaid, the snapping of a leash and the rush of freedom.

To want, to crave, to hold, to heal.

Her selfish wish was that a selfless affection could flow between the three of them.

Grun came up around behind her, kissing her hair, her cheek. His lips on her neck, her shoulder.

Her wish came true.

Tanyth tucked their cheek against hers and she nestled into their neck, kissing them there.

“W-where there any s-stipulations on the use of the veranda?” Tanyth asked.

Grun’s hands found Linza’s breasts as his tongue traced the curve from the tip of her shoulder to her temple.

Linza moaned. “We have it for the hour.”

“Always so prepared,” Grun said, tipping her head back with his hand and kissing her again.

Tanyth stood and hastily kicked off their trousers, nearly tripping as they did.

Linza giggled through the kiss, and Grun pressed into her even more fiercely.

His hand pressed between her legs, and she moaned.

Tanyth’s hands found their shaft as they considered their options.

Linza wiggled and Grun leaned back, allowing her to strip her shirt off over her head and unbutton her skirt.

Grun’s trousers were struggling to contain his massive erection. He unbuttoned them and sighed with relief as he freed his member to Linza’s eager affections.

She could fit little more than the head of his shaft in her mouth, though Grun didn’t seem to mind her limits. He groaned happily and his knees shook.

Tanyth came to sit next to her, their hands finding Grun’s balls. “Do you want him inside of you as bad as I do?” Tanyth said.

“Most definitely,” Linza sighed. “But that’s going to take a lot longer than we have here.”

“When in doubt, cock worship?” Tanyth offered.

Linza leaned over and pecked them on the cheek. “You read my mind.”

Any of Grun’s previous machismo vanished as Linza and Tanyth lavished attentions upon him. He quivered and groaned—he gasped and his eyes pleaded.

He eventually ended up back in his chair, Linza and Tanyth kneeling between his legs.

They took turns between his shaft and balls, stroking and licking and moaning.

He shifted, rocking his hips towards them.

Linza broke from his tip for a moment. “Just so you know, he likes a rim job.”

Tanyth’s eyes lit up. They brought their attentions lower. “Ooooh, you took a bath right before this, didn’t you?”

“Y-yeah,” Grun said, “Never hurts to be… nnnngh… prepared…”

Tanyth brought their tongue enthusiastically to Grun’s perineum, licking eagerly.

Linza worked his shaft with both hands and stroked the underside of his head with the flat of her tongue. Already she was treated with another sweet drop of pre-cum.

Tanyth dropped a half an inch lower, and Grun’s voice caught.

Then Tanyth dropped a little lower, and Grun’s moans deepened, his whole body quivering with anticipation.

His shaft throbbed, his pleasure gifting Linza with more pre-cum.

Tanyth dropped a little bit lower.

“F-fuck! T-Tanyth I’m so close… if you get any closer than I’m really gonna… huh…”

Tanyth took that as an invitation to apply their enthusiastic oral attentions directly to Grun’s rim.

Grun’s back arched, he bellowed a moan, and his balls tensed at his base as he catapulted into climax.

Linza swallowed him greedily, the stroking of her tongue pulling even more out of him.

Both she and Tanyth knew how to read him, and they both eased just as pleasure turned to sensitivity.

Grun heaved a full-body sigh and looked up at them, but he seemed more enthused than sated. “Alright, who’s next?”

“Linza, of course!” Tanyth said.

Linza shook her head. “Nope. Tanyth.” She grinned a little wickedly. “I want to see how quickly you can make them pop.”

Grun sat up and dipped his head at Linza. “As you wish.”

Tanyth flushed red, and they trembled with anticipation, their own erection throbbing. “It’s only fair, I couldn’t impose, I—”

Grun dropped to his knees and stood Tanyth up in front of him, then took Tanyth’s entire length into his mouth.

Tanyth’s protests melted into a moan of abject pleasure.

With a practiced rhythm and genuine desire to please, Grun worked over Tanyth’s length.

“F-fuck… this feels like… like fucking it feels… nnngh so gooood…”

Grun tilted his head to wink at Linza.

Her own heart fluttered out of her chest. She dropped back to her chair and kicked off her soaked underwear. Her whole body was thrumming even before she pressed her fingers over her vulva. She gasped at the pleasure.

This spurred Grun on.

That sent Tanyth even deeper into their spiral of bliss, and both of those things together especially fanned Linza’s heat, which escaped in further gasps, and so on.

Round and around, they climbed.

Grun started stroking himself, the moans of his own pleasure mingling with the pressing heat of his mouth as he enveloped Tanyth.

Tanyth anchored their fingers in his hair lest they fall over, and they let Grun push and push them towards climax.

Linza watched them, capturing every curve and angle and note into memory. The arch of Tanyth’s back. Their braid unraveling. Grun’s hand around their hips, fingers reaching fully around one cheek of their ass. The droplets beading and then falling from Grun’s tip, as he slowly stroked himself.

Linza’s own moans deepened. She was getting close.

Within a moment, Tanyth was hanging from the edge, totally at Grun’s mercy.

And then Linza realized. Grun hadn’t really been trying to make Tanyth come as fast as he could, though he had certainly put on a show of it.

What he was really doing was holding Tanyth at the quivering edge as long as he could. Timing it all for Linza. An offer that the three of them might climax together. Simultaneous orgasm was hardly necessary for pleasure, and perhaps a bit overrated. But Linza had to admit, it was really really hot.

The realization of what Grun was doing for her pushed her over the edge as much as the sight of it did.

As she screamed her pleasure, totally forgetting that on the veranda they could not be seen but they certainly could be heard, Grun unfettered his efforts.

As Linza’s mind returned from the brink of sanity to the throbbing waves of pleasure, Tanyth groaned and collapsed over Grun’s head, wrapping their arms around his neck.

Grun swallowed, the ripple of his throat sending another trickle of pleasure down Linza’s spine.

And then Grun came, his moans making Tanyth gasp, his cum in thick white spurts across the wood and Tanyth’s feet.

Tanyth shook, leaning against the table and waiting for their senses and balance to return. They laughed as they saw their feet.

An idea sparked in Linza’s mind, a suggestion from the character of the orcish woman that she had summoned for Grun, and she voiced it.

“If it pleases,” she crooned at him, “Do clean up the mess you’ve made of poor Tanyth.”

The complete deference on Grun’s face astounded Linza as he eagerly bowed and licked his spend off of Tanyth’s feet.

Tanyth gasped, tensing at what might have been ticklish, their shaft throbbing to hardness again.

Linza had intended that Grun might use his shirt or something, but this was way better.

Finally, Grun looked up at her. “Have I pleased?”

“Yes. And we’ll get a rag for the rest. I don’t want you licking the floor, you kiss me with that mouth.”

He seemed to take that as an invitation, surging to his feet, scooping her up, and doing just that, plunging her into the heady musk of his sweat, the bitter taste of his seed on his tongue.

That nearly drove her into another frenzy, except for one thing—she couldn’t quite breathe. Reluctantly, she reluctantly put a hand to his chest. 

He leaned back.

“Okay, okay, I need to catch my breath.” 

He relented, and she folded into his chest.

Those next minutes trickled softly like sand through an hourglass. The ocean whispered. Their hearts slowed. They all silently reflected on what had fallen away, and what still was.

They stirred, then dressed again.

Linza carefully straightened Tanyth’s shirt, her fingers lingering at their waist.

Grun playfully untucked Linza’s shirt, and as she stopped to fix it, he flipped up her skirt and grabbed her ass.

They left the veranda and went for dinner, talking easily and laughing long into the night.