Part 4: The Interloper, The Alchemist's Illusions

Chapter 31: Pretty Little Thing

Wyn had offered to torch both Tanyth and Grun with fireballs, and Linza had the uneasy feeling that Wyn actually would if Linza asked her to. Linza, of course, declined. But the genuine promise of violence was a token of affection from Wyn, and Linza once again thanked the stars for her friend.

The rest of the week was manageable, and Linza was able to focus on both her day job and her night job without too much further trouble. Her conversations with Tanyth still made her a bit queasy, and she manufactured excuses to dodge a couple of their conversations, but overall, it was alright.

Tanyth was clearly enamored with Grun, though Grun did not seem to reciprocate their flirtations.

Wonder what that’s like, Linza had snipped to herself.

“How frustrating!” she had said. If only Tanyth had known the irony.

Linza had been looking forward to the weekend, not so much for the lack of work as for the distraction of it. She was off the second day, and she and Wyn had planned a proper girl’s day.

Her shift had been mostly regulars since new guests didn’t tend to book a weekend midday. She was coming up on a slot that had cancelled last minute. In those cases, other staff were welcome to come take the slot. Otherwise, it would be a free break for her.

It was two minutes past the start of the slot and Linza was just gathering her things to step out for her break when there was a firm knock at the ornate door.

“Come in!” Linza called.

Grun entered. His long hair was up in a bun and his beard trimmed short. He now wore fitted trousers and a blazer with no shirt underneath. Had Tanyth taken him shopping? Or was this his own preferred style? 

He looked around the little room, his eyes hovering over the grate for a moment.

Linza reeled, reminding herself that he couldn’t see her lest she totally give in to the panic sizzling in her limbs.

 “Hi! I’m, uh… Grun. I’m new here and I figured it’d best if I, y’know, knew what all there was here. Tanyth said I ought to, since lots of folks start in my department and then ask about other things. The vanilla department, that is. I— um, I’m totally rambling.” Grun sat down awkwardly on the bamboo mat.

She was reluctant to admit how much his awkwardness settled her. She could do without the arrogant swagger. Seeing him so nervous, she almost liked him. Almost.

Did he know that it was her? If he asked her name, she’d tell him. Otherwise, it was expected that the illusionist in this scenario spoke as little as was necessary, and usually only answered direct questions. Not all guests liked the idea of being watched. The screen made it easier for them to imagine that they were alone with their illusion.

“H-how does this work?” he asked.

For these experiences, Linza used her ‘reading voice’ which was smooth and controlled and different enough from her conversational tone that he might not notice. “You tell me what you’d like. Almost anything at all. You’ll feel it, like it’s real. At any time, if you reject the illusion, the effect and the feeling will stop, and it will look translucent. It will last up to fifteen minutes.”

He nodded and ran his fingers through his beard.

He didn’t seem to have noticed that it was Linza. Here, sitting at her stool in the cozy little room, cloaked in shadow, the grate between them, it was easy to treat him like she would any other guest. 

As he described what he wanted, the image formed in her mind.

And then as she chanted the words and traced the gestures, the image formed in front of him.

The image was a woman, as much taller than him as he was taller than Linza. She was half-orc, hair in a ponytail, golden hoops lining her ears and one in her lip. She was naked, her breasts laying against her chest with nipples darker green than the rest of her skin.

“Why, aren’t you a pretty little thing?” Her voice was sweet and smoky.

He looked up at her, enraptured.

“C’mere!” She wrapped around him from behind and started pawing at his clothes. He unbuttoned them and soon was naked too.

Linza tried to maintain a merely professional appreciation of his body, ignoring the tingle of heat between her legs at the breadth of his shoulders, the muscles of his legs and ass, the slight softness of his stomach. She couldn’t help but remember the way all those muscles had strained on the veranda as he’d worked to control his release. His shaft throbbed quickly to its full length and girth, noticeably thicker in the middle.

Usually, Linza imagined the figures in the illusions as characters separate from herself, which made it easier to prompt them to say or do things that Linza herself wouldn’t do. But her professionalism wavered and though she couldn’t say why, she wanted very much to be that massive woman who towered over him.

The illusory orc woman gently pressed at Grun’s shoulders and he spun obediently, facing her and straddling her hips.

With one hand, she ran her fingers up his now hardened shaft.

He shivered and gasped.

Her other hand reached over his leg and easily cupped his whole ass cheek in her fingers. She squeezed, tugging at his rim.

He moaned.

“Why, you’re so ready to spread yourself for me, aren’t you?” she said.

He blushed and sputtered, just like he said he’d like to.

“Must be because you’re a greedy little slut,” she crooned.

“I am not, I—”

“Shhh.” She lifted her hand from his shaft to put a finger to his lips. She then ran that fingertip gently over his lower lip. As his jaw slacked, she pressed her finger to his tongue. He licked and sucked, eager to please.

With her hand on his ass, she pressed him closer into her soft stomach. 

Reflexively, he bucked his hips, grinding against her. He whimpered, desperate for more sensation, but too deferential to demand it.

Heat blurred the edges of Linza’s vision, her imagination all too eager to merge her with the illusion, to provide the phantom sensation of his throbbing cock against her stomach. It was risky and unprofessional to lose control like this—too likely to result in a bad experience for the client, an illusion that wasn’t to their liking. But what he’d asked for was exactly what she wanted to do to him, and she couldn’t bring herself to stop, not with his eyes rolling back and his breath shuddering with anticipation.

She withdrew her finger from his mouth and stroked his shaft in her hand, her palm nearly enveloping his entire length.

He gasped and moaned at the relief.

Her hand on his ass gripped tighter, stretched his rim more.

He whimpered with ecstasy.

A wicked, toothy grin parted her thick green lips. “You seem like you might like something like this…” She inched her fingers over and ran one fingertip lightly over the edge of his rim.

“Y-yes!” he said.

“Oh yeah? Do you like… this?” She brought the fingertip further over, running circles across his whole rim, still stroking him with the other hand.

“Yessss…” he moaned. He slumped forward, cheek against her breast.

Through the illusion, he would feel the softness of her skin, hear the thunder of her heartbeat, experience his weight melting into her, even as in reality he still held himself upright.

“F-fuck… you’re making me drip…” he said. His whole body shook with his trembling breath.

Linza slowed, not wanting to give it to him so easily, only halfway remembering that he had indeed asked to be edged. The pause allowed her good sense to catch up to her, and she forced herself back into her body, back to the awareness that the illusion of the orcish woman was outside of her.

Anyone other than her or Grun would just see the half-orc man kneeling on the bamboo mat with his legs spread wide, his cock throbbing into the air and his head steadily dripping pre-cum.

The thought had the opposite of its intended effect. With just her mind and her magic, Linza had reduced this swaggering man into a panting, pleading mess. He would explode onto the floor without a single touch to his cock, not from himself or anyone else, simply because of what she did to his brain.

She had been working this job for months. She didn’t know why it was now and with him that she finally understood exactly what she did, exactly what kind of power she wielded with her chants and hand signs and the rattle of a crystal.

It was even more intoxicating than the arousal.

“Good,” she said through the illusory orc, dipping her finger in the puddle of pre-cum forming on the bamboo mat. “I want more. Do you want more?”

He nodded.

“Say it.” She teased his rim harder.

He gasped and whimpered.

“Use your words.”

“P-please! I want you inside of me, please!”

Something long-dormant awoke within Linza, unable to resist the half-orc’s desperate call. It slithered through her mind, gorging itself on the knowledge of her power, writhing sensuously in the honey of the half-orc’s pleading. 

Gods, how she loved to see him squirm. 

Unlimited by the physical mechanics of lubrication and perfectly calibrated to the right level of sensation by the desires of his mind, she pressed her finger inside of him.

“Fuck! Oh gods, fuck, oh…” His whole body trembled, every muscle taught, just as when he’d wrestled to control himself for the madame. 

“You like that quite a lot, don’t you?”

“Yes! Fuck, you feel so good… fuck, I’m dripping…” His cock throbbed into the empty air, a steady drip of pre-cum joining the puddle, even as he felt her slick palm slide under his tip.

“Oh? And I haven’t even found your spot yet.”

“My— Ah!” He cried out as the sensation overwhelmed him.

This was the special power of the illusion. She needed only suggest it and Grun’s mind would select his most intense, most perfect, most pleasurable memory and serve it up for him, like a waking dream. He would feel her fingers curling within him, pressing against the muscular wall, activating every single nerve of pleasure.

He moaned from his very core.

She gave him a moment to adjust, then withdrew her finger and pressed harder again.

His eyes rolled back, cheeks flushed, breath hitching. “F-fuck that’s gonna make me…”

Linza slowed the sensation, licking her lips as if she could taste his sweet desperation.

Through the orc’s husky voice, she crooned, “Gonna make you what?”

He groaned. “Gonna make me cum…”

“Do you want to cum?”

“Yes! Please!” He looked up at her with pleading eyes.

She would have teased him forever if not for the way that his begging stoked her own arousal, made her hunger for release, even vicariously.

Her own breath coming fast and shallow, she started up the sensation again, stroking him and pressing against his spot.

His whole body quivered, pleaded. Gradually, his breathing quickened again. His groans deepened.

“F-fuck I’m… I’m so close I… can I?” He quivered like a drawn arrow, so close and yet so obedient, earning his release by providing such a delicious display.

“Cum for me,” she purred.

His eyes rolled back and his whole body tensed.

Linza nearly lost concentration on the illusion, so eager she was to watch his cock as it throbbed in the empty air. 

The spasm started at the base of his cock, his balls pulling tight as his face twisted into a grimace and a growl curled in his chest. With a shudder, he burst, ropes of cum spurting in mesmerizing arcs and then puddling on the bamboo mat.

She kept up the sensation until his cum ran clear, signaling the end of his climax, and she gently slowed as he relaxed. Then she curled around him, humming gently and stroking his hair with her hand that was almost the size of his head.

The tenderness surprised Linza almost as much as the slithering wickedness had. What exactly had Grun awakened in her?

Whatever it was, it faded as exhaustion settled heavily over her, as much in sympathy to Grun’s afterglow as in indication that she was pushing the edge of her magical capacity.

She nudged him down gently onto the bamboo mat and smoothed his hair down, then released the magic.

Grun sighed, eyes closed and expression serene.

Linza sat on the little stool, her breathing slowing as she tried to account for what had just happened. There was now no denying that Grun affected her how no one else ever had. Surely it was wrong to enjoy making someone squirm so much, and yet… he liked it, didn’t he? Was this the ‘chemistry’ that Wyn talked about?

But why did it have to be with him?

And why did it have to turn her into this slithering, wicked thing?

She suddenly wasn’t sure if she liked it—if she liked any of it. Nausea tugged at her stomach—she’d lost track of time and pushed her limits. Maybe that’s all this was—just magical exhaustion making her woozy. Like lack of oxygen or sleep, magical depletion could have strange effects. Fortunately, her last two slots of the day were just for Minor Illusions.

Grun stirred and stretched, disturbing Linza from her thoughts. She was too tired and confused to do anything but watch him. He dressed again, but paused by the door as he went to leave.

“Thank you,” he said.

Linza didn’t reply.

He left.

Muscle memory took over as she slid open the screen and cleaned the room. Within minutes, nothing remained of what had just transpired.

The same could not be said for Linza’s mind.

All she could see when she closed her eyes was his climax, over and over again.

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Part 4: The Convention, The Black Box

Chapter 16: The Velvet Table

“That is quite the predicament,” Felix said. “Just like how…” He reached into the box on John’s lap, which was now nearly empty. He drummed his fingers on the cardboard that was right above John’s crotch, sending sparks up John’s painfully restrained erection. John shuddered. Felix continued, “The last few are always so hard to get out of the box…”

Felix took his time rooting around.

Heat flushed down John’s legs and rose in his face, his eyes fluttering shut momentarily.

Finally, Felix relented, grabbing the last few samples and putting them on the table.

John kept the empty box in his lap. He now had even more erection to hide. “I um, I get the feeling that you’re flirting with me,” John said.

“Do you like it?” Felix asked.

“I do,” John said.

“Do you like boys?”

John was actually kind of surprised that Arya hadn’t brought it up before, though he would certainly talk it through with her when he got back. “I wouldn’t have thought I did, before but… I’m a lot more open, now, than I was… before.”

Felix grinned coyly. “Yeah, I bet you get that ass wide open.”

John’s heart fluttered.

“If you’re… open to it,” Felix continued, “I was thinking I could give you a bit of a hand job, to thank you for giving me that juicy insider info. Not to completion, of course, I wouldn’t ruin your game.”

John immediately imagined the feeling of Felix’s hand on his shaft, which set him throbbing even harder. Felix seemed nice and John was probably just being prejudiced, but he didn’t want a seemingly spontaneous encounter to suddenly become a bill. “I really respect your line of work, but I’m not sure something… transactional is what I’m looking for, right now.”

“Can I give you a pitch?” Felix asked.

John would have expected the man to be more pushy in general, but he was now appreciating that Arya’s emphasis on connection and consent was not as unique as he’d thought.

“Yeah, okay,” John said.

“I actually get off on it being transactional. Doing it for the money… or, well, not really me gaining the money, but them losing the money. I’d suck off just about any man who burned a fifty for it, y’know?”

John did not know. “How do you… how do you like it, as a job?”

Felix shrugged. “A job’s a job. It has its fun moments. It has its tedium. Some occupational hazards. I like sex. I like the acting, I actually wanted to go into theater, before I got into this.”

“Does it feel… fake to you, then?”

“Not at all. I guess you could call it… storytelling, more so. Like, I’m telling a story together with my client. A story is real enough, in your head.”

For the second time, John was struck by how quickly and accurately Felix could sum up the words that he’d been struggling with for so long. It was not that Arya was fake, it was that she was a story. Stories were real. They weren’t people, but they could feel like people. “I might just have to have you write my review, you’re way better at talking about this than I am.”

“Well, then you’d have to suck me off,” Felix said coyly.

“I will take that into consideration,” John said.

“Is that code for ‘no’?” Felix asked.

John shook his head. “It’s code for ‘I’ll take that into consideration’.”

Felix seemed to brighten even more. 

“So,” John said, “Is it just a coincidence with your line of work and this gig? Or did they ask for your best bedroom eyes, handing this stuff out?”

Felix laughed a bit harder than John expected, giving John the feeling that there was some other layer of humor that he was unaware of. “I had thought it was a coincidence at first. I’m listed on a site for odd jobs, but now that I think of it, they had my email directly. They could’ve gotten it from the agency, I guess. I couldn’t figure what their angle was, but, I guess it makes sense to have a sex professional represent a sex game, if they’re not going to bother to send one of their own.”

“I think they’re trying to build the mystique,” John said. “The less you know about it, the less you can spoil the surprise for others.”

“Well, now I can spoil the surprise for them.”

“Will you?”

“Nah. I can respect the rules of the game.”

The way that Felix looked at him, John was sure that Felix was also speaking of John’s own game, and his standing offer. Felix had given his pitch, but John hadn’t given a response. Felix did truly seem to be enjoying himself, and who was John to judge Felix’s sincerity? Like Felix had said, it was about the storytelling, so even if Felix was ‘acting’… that didn’t mean that it diminished his enjoyment, or John’s.

The image of Felix masturbating later to the memory of stroking John under the table flashed through John’s mind, and his dick twitched in response.

John cleared his throat. “I didn’t get distracted from your pitch. I accept your offer.” He instinctively wanted to clarify the guardrails and rules of the encounter, and he realized that was because Arya always did. He couldn’t believe it had ever not been habit. 

He considered what the stop signal should be. Perhaps he could grab Felix’s wrist. But, actually, if he grabbed Felix’s wrist what he’d really want was for Felix to keep going. The tension of gripping Felix to try to slow him down, and Felix pushing back… it excited John even more. “If I need you to stop, I’ll pretend to sneeze. If I grabbed your wrist and you kept going, would that be okay?”

Felix grinned eagerly. “Grab me as hard as you want. Until I fake sneeze. That works well here.”

“Okay. Cool.” John looked out over the crowded convention center, realizing what was about to happen, and his mouth went dry. “I’ve never done anything like this before,” he said quietly.

Felix patted his arm reassuringly. “All the more fun, then. You can let me take the lead. Here, we should scoot up nice and close to the table, and you can ditch your box.”

John did as Felix recommended, and it ironically made them look like they were even more attentive to the table, though they would be the opposite.

Felix waited for gaps in the crowd to give his instructions. “You should unzip yourself and get situated, that’ll be best.”

The sensation was already intense as John undid his zipper, a thrill coursing through him. As he finally freed his dick from its captivity, he sighed with relief. Even just this was a welcome respite.

He heard Felix’s chair shift and knew what was coming, and then Felix’s hand, warm and soft, was on his shaft.

John put his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his hands.

Between the deprivation, the long arousal from telling his story, and the thrill of being in public, every touch felt absolutely incredible. Felix started with his fingertips, mapping out John’s shaft, and then gently curled his fingers around, but didn’t stroke yet.

Even with all of his experimenting with Arya, John had not yet played a game where the premise explicitly excluded orgasm. This game was about only the pleasure in the present moment. John couldn’t stop himself from imagining blowing his load under the table, gripping the velvet edges, painting his jeans and the floor and the inside of the velvet, struggling and only barely succeeding to hide his true activity through a feigned yawn or stretch.

That was a dangerous fantasy, though, in that it rapidly built John’s arousal. Felix continued stroking, still light and soft, but enough to make John quiver periodically.

Though, as Felix continued, John realized that it wasn’t building him towards orgasm. He realized that that shouldn’t surprise him. Everyone was different, and he would have had to coach Felix if Felix was going to get him off with a hand job.

The serendipity was that John could then lean into the pleasure more, not at risk of breaking his rules, just savoring the sensation of another person’s hand on him. It always felt different, when the touch came from someone else. This was a different sort of wonderful than what he and Arya shared.

Soon a dreamy, hazy pleasure settled over John, distinct from the hot, urgent need that was more often his experience. As folks stopped by for their samples, Felix continued to rattle off his script.

 John wondered if to the people who came by, he himself simply appeared to be high. His eyes were certainly dilated and unfocused, his cheeks flushed, his posture melting back into the folding chair.

Felix gradually accelerated his pace, but he was limited by friction and fortunately professional enough to not push it. He had to pause to add more boxes to the table and when he did he kept one in hand. He opened it and tipped out the contents, which was a tiny glass vial. Under the table, where John watched out of the corner of his eye, Felix poured out the contents onto his hand closest to John.

A moment later, John’s shaft was enveloped in soft, slick heat. The lube was the same that had come with his own box, silky and slick to the touch. The sensation heightened and John’s toes curled in his sneakers. He put a hand flat on the table so that he could grip a handful of the velvet and squeeze, trying to find somewhere to bleed off the warm energy that was building in his shaft.

Felix was enthused by that reaction, and just as John was starting to worry that he might have to tell Felix to stop, Felix changed it up. He put his fingers under John’s tip and swirled them there, gently brushing by the incredibly sensitive spot of John’s frenulum, and causing John to shudder and grip the velvet more tightly.

Felix’s fingers then wandered lower to John’s balls, which he first cupped and then gently massaged. And he continued to do that for a while, building a different kind of tension and sensation for John, a mix of blissful pleasure and also throbbing denial. 

The touch felt so good, but his shaft begged for sensation again. He forced himself to keep his hands above the table. He thought about putting his hand to his already slick shaft and indulging, but then he was really sure he wouldn’t last. So, the thought remained just a thought.

As John stole a glance over and saw Felix’s look of mischief, he’d have sworn that Felix had been tempting him on purpose, seeing if he could get John to touch himself.

Felix continued for a few more long, agonizing, wonderful minutes. John took deep breaths, settling back towards savoring the pleasure and away from the table-gripping urgency.

Then, suddenly, Felix returned to John’s shaft and started pumping, hard. John was certain then that Felix was testing him. Not so much breaking the rules as provoking John to assert them.

John’s hand darted under the table and he grabbed Felix’s wrist, hard.

Felix’s face flushed pinker. He pushed against John’s grip, as much as he could without revealing the struggle above the table. John had the better leverage, so Felix’s hand stayed more or less in the same spot, and so Felix started brushing his fingers over John’s shaft again.

With his hands still on Felix’s wrist, John moved his hand back and forth, stroking himself through Felix’s grip. Felix caught the drift and flexed his fingers to vary the sensation.

A warm buzz lingered, but John’s urgency faded again. John eventually released Felix’s wrist, and Felix kept up the slow stroking.

In a quiet moment where nobody was close to the table, Felix said, “You’ve got some serious discipline, don’t you?”

“Just lots of practice, I guess,” John said, “Though I assure you I don’t feel very disciplined.”

“I could really put you to the test,” Felix said, sounding genuinely excited. 

John wasn’t so arrogant to think that he could truly tell, but Felix didn’t seem to be acting at all this point. 

“The ultimate risk reward,” Felix continued. “If you win, you get to go tell Arya that you passed the ultimate test. If I win, I get a delicious snack.”

“So wait, what, if you win I’m buying you a funnel cake?” There was, in fact, a funnel cake stand a few stalls down.

Felix snorted. “Uh. No.”

John understood suddenly that Felix had meant John’s ejaculate, not a convention snack. He was offering to suck John’s dick. “Oh.” Felix was exactly right that it would be the ultimate risk reward. It would be the test of all the control and denial that he had been cultivating these last weeks. John wanted that. He wanted that very much.

“Is that a ‘yes’?” Felix asked, eager.

John nodded.

“Still good with a fake sneeze?” Felix asked.

John nodded, not able to do much more than that. 

Felix scanned the convention floor, waited until no one was looking, turned and pretended to bend over to pick up another box, and then crouched suddenly to the ground and ducked under the table.

A long, long moment passed before he did anything else, perhaps waiting to see if anybody reacted to his sudden disappearance, but more likely he was teasing John. It was working. John felt hyper-aware of everything around him, from the roaring sound of the crowd to the sensation of the still air on his exposed dick, to the dampness of the velvet under his sweating palms.

And then, Felix’s hot, soft, wet mouth around his shaft. John couldn’t help but moan. Fortunately, nobody was too close to the stall at that point.

Felix took his sweet time, slowly touring John’s dick with his tongue, even taking a moment to hold one of his balls totally within his mouth, and then the other. 

Mercifully, excruciatingly, Felix didn’t know John’s preferences or tells and therefore was not at high risk to actually make him come. 

As conference-goers came up for their samples, John greeted them according to the script, his voice husky and soft with pleasure, his eyes gentle and fluttering, his cheeks tinted red. 

When nobody was paying him direct attention, John let himself gasp and moan, the noises swallowed in the constant din of the convention hall. 

He longed to thrust deeply into Felix’s throat, but he withheld. First off, Felix might not appreciate that. And second, even if he did, there was no way that John could face fuck him subtly. So, he was resigned to accepting whatever hot, wet, sucking stimulation that Felix would provide. 

And his hands were not idle, as they greedily wandered John’s thighs and calves and even his ass, emboldened by their code for ‘stop’. At one point, Felix struck up a regular rhythm with his tongue and throat, one hand on John’s balls and the other on his ass, and John was perilously close to needing to ask him to stop, an urgency building that John would soon be unable to leave unanswered.

But just as John was mustering a fake sneeze, Felix changed his tact, and John faded back into a quieter pleasure. 

And it was wonderful. And sensual. And thrilling. And without John’s climax to end it, it was dependent on Felix’s interest and comfort. Eventually Felix’s attentions tapered off and faded, and John watched for a good opportunity to signal Felix that he could return to the table.

When he popped back up, Felix’s hair was in a bit of disarray and John tucked it back for him. John’s shaft was cold with the lingering moisture from Felix’s mouth, and he enjoyed the novel sensation. 

As Felix settled in, John glanced over and noticed that Felix was sporting his own erection behind his tight pants. He scooted up to the table to hide it. 

Felix was flushed and breathing heavily. “What if I…” he whispered to John, “What if I came under the table.”

“That would be pretty hot,” John said. 

Felix’s dick was out faster than John thought possible to work a zipper and then Felix was stroking himself under the table, just as John had imagined himself doing. And Felix was not bound by the rules of the game. John found himself suddenly excited that anyone might find release in such a place, even if it wouldn’t be him.

He took the lead greeting guests as they approached as Felix stroked himself with fresh lube under the velvet-covered table.

John leaned back in his chair so that he could see Felix’s hands, working furiously away at his erection. 

In a lull of foot traffic, Felix panted, “If you can’t come then… I’m gonna come… hard enough… for the both of us…”

Felix was not particularly subtle as he came, his eyes rolling back and his breath coming in ragged gasps as he spurted on the inside of the velvet, but his timing was lucky and nobody took any particular notice.

After he settled, Felix licked himself off of his fingers. “What a good gig,” he huffed.

John grinned and his dick throbbed. “I should get going, but I’ll be in touch about the review.”

“You better be in touch,” Felix crooned. 

John gathered himself and rose from the stall, lest he linger and ruin his game. He would not be able to last much longer behind that velvet table with Felix. And, there really was more of the convention that he wanted to see.

So he bid the young man a warm farewell, for now, and headed back out into the hall. 

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Part 6: Partners, The Dragon's Tower

Chapter 33: Juiciest Berries

They had lived by the waterfall for a fortnight and their many passions kindled and flared next to the steady tumble of water. 

All sorts of fancies came upon them and they indulged them all. One soon became their favorite game. Pasco would bind Ada in the clearing between the trees and fuck her into torturous bliss. Then, when he released her, she would descend upon him and do the same to him. She pinned him to the ground with the cage of her claws and fucked him with her tongue.

One midday, they were walking down the path that followed the brook to the village as they usually did. They were on the way to meet Forte, Teoda, Missa, and Sendia for lunch. Like the other pirates, Ada wandered the island topless now, the skin of her breasts slowly darkening at the embrace of the sun.

This was not the first time in the past several days that Ada had remarked that the foliage that lined the brook was somehow even more verdant than it had been before, notably more lush than even the surrounding jungle.

A glint of red caught her eye and she strayed from the path to part the branches of a bush, revealing a clump of berries that glittered like a handful of rubies. 

She took the big knife from her hip, which she now carried habitually, and cut the clump of ripe fruit free, returning to Pasco. 

“Didn’t the children just come through for berries two days ago?” Ada asked. 

Pasco shrugged. “They’re children, they overlook things sometimes. Just means a snack for us!”

Ada couldn’t argue with that, so she cracked the bunch in two and handed half to Pasco as they walked. 

The berries were perfectly ripe, full of sweet juices, and Ada found their seeds with her tongue and placed them carefully in a pouch at her belt. She’d want to try to cultivate this species, it was particularly delicious!

Ada’s mind wandered through the pages of her old horticulture books. She was brought suddenly back to the present as Pasco abruptly doubled over, reaching out to steady himself on a tree.

“Pasco!” She rushed to his elbow. Had he become ill? His body glistened with more sweat than usual. Were the berries poisonous? An empty stem fell from his hand to the trail. He had eaten them all. 

Pasco groaned. 

Ada tried to lift him by the elbow but could not, so she ducked to get a better look at his face.

He was a picture of exquisite, overwhelming arousal. His skin was flushed reddish, his eyes fluttering. His erection extended down one of his trouser legs, throbbing, and he groaned again as he started to rub himself through the fabric. 

Ada’s worry turned to sympathetic arousal immediately, her sex flaring hot, but she would not let him off the hook so easily. She punched his arm playfully. “Pasco! What’s gotten into you?”

“I d-don’t know, I—” he groaned again. This time, he hastily undid his trousers and dropped them to his ankles. As his hand found his shaft, he sighed with relief. 

Ada giggled, surprised she could still feel a salacious thrill but enjoying it all the same. “Don’t you want to come back up to bed, then?”

“No,” he moaned, “no, I won’t make it.”

“Even though you already came twice this morning?” Ada was grinning widely. 

“Yes, so what?”

Ada giggled again. “So you sound like me all of a sudden, that’s all.”

Could it… could it be the berries? What had made these special? Wouldn’t these pirates, of all people, know if aphrodisiacs grew in their own sands?

She would unpack that later. For now, she had something — someone — to unload. 

“So you’re not going to make it back to bed?” She teased, grabbing his bare chest from behind and running her fingers down his sides where his skin rippled over his ribs. Though his muscles were firm, the surface of his skin was so soft under her fingertips, so yielding. And that was him. So unmovable in some ways, so pliant in others. She loved that about him.

He gasped. 

She pressed her lips against his back, savoring how soft his skin was against her kisses, which she trailed up to the base of his neck and then down again, his hair tickling against her. 

Her hands wandered down to his hips, where his skin hollowed in below the peaks of his pelvis. First her fingertips were soft, and he shuddered at the tickling touch. Then, she yanked him back into her and he gasped. 

Pasco’s stroking had slowed as he leaned into her ministrations. 

She grabbed his ass, as hard as she could, like she knew he liked. His favorite was when her fingernails left divots in his skin, and she added new ornaments to the existing flecks of red. 

Her fingertips then traced smooth lines around his ass and to the front of his thighs, up on either side of his base, across his stomach and up to the firm muscles of his chest. 

One hand pressed against his sternum and the other slithered up to grab his throat. 

His head tilted back over her shoulder and he moaned, ecstatic. 

She loved the feeling of his voice and heartbeat fluttering under her palm, just like his whole chest did when she pinned him down as a dragon. His skin against her skin, his neck against her cheek, her chest against his back, it was all so brilliant.

He had all but stopped stroking. Despite his arousal, she had utterly captivated him. 

Her tongue found the tip of his shoulder and she licked him from there to the base of his neck where his beard prickled on her tongue. 

She breathed deep. He smelled of coconut and musk and peat and sea salt and even the spice of her own sex. 

She lavished kisses at the base of his neck, her hand still on his throat and pressing him open for her. 

He shivered. 

She giggled with mischief, then nibbled his ear.

He gasped and squirmed but he was hardly trying to escape. He just liked the sensation of her hands on him, he’d told her. And she was all too happy to oblige.

She glanced around to his throbbing erection which was now unattended, and when she saw the bead of moisture already leaking from his tip, she knew exactly what she wanted next. 

She moved her hands to the top of his shoulders and pushed him down. 

He obeyed, dropping first to his knees and then accepting another push that sent him reclining back in the middle of the path. 

Sun dappled through the leaves overhead and parrots chattered as the brook trickled nearby. 

Ada crouched over him, her ass over his head, her hands descending to either side of his base and teasing him for a moment. Then, she wrapped her lips around his tip and greedily lapped up his sweet nectar. 

He moaned and bucked his hips up towards her, but she denied him any deeper stimulation.

“Sensitive, are we?” she teased. 

“Yes!” he gasped. 

She set about taking him into her mouth with earnest, greedily licking at his throbbing shaft. One hand extended the reach of her mouth, closing around his base, while the other steadied her against the ground. 

It was her turn to gasp as he grabbed her hips and pulled his face up to her vulva, though she still wore her trousers. He unfastened them and pulled them down over her knees, exposing her to his eager tongue, which had learned her favorite kind of licks.

The arm that supported her nearly buckled and her mouth slipped even farther over him. 

She moaned, which made him moan, which made her moan, and so they turned in a twin ouroboros of ecstasy. 

Soon, Ada was edging. But that didn’t overtake her with urgency like it had before. Rather, it became just one of many pleasant ways to be.

And Ada didn’t want this worship of Pasco’s body to end, so she withdrew from him and stood over him a moment, considering.

He whimpered and tried to follow her, propping himself up on his elbows to look up at her. His shaft was still wet with her saliva, his broad chest and strong back called out for her touch.

She refastened her trousers over her hips, then danced around to the other side of him. His eyes following her and she sat down at the base of a moss-lined tree by the edge of the path.

She spread her legs and reached out towards him and he obediently scooted back into her.

Just as when they had stood, his back pressed into her chest and her arms wrapped around him. He was sweating profusely, filling the air around them with musky scent like perfume. She nuzzled in under his arm where the scent was strongest and just breathed deeply of him for a long moment.

Then, she wiggled around just to the side and hooked one of her legs over his thigh, which allowed her to grind her still-throbbing sex against the back of his hip. 

Though his chest was broad, his hips were slender enough that she could just reach both of her hands around him. As he reached towards his throbbing shaft, she knocked his hand away and put hers there instead.

His hand dropped to the ground as she started to stroke him.

She tried to imitate how she’d seen him touch himself, how she’d seen Missa do this to Sendia. Pasco moaned and melted further back into her. Ada loved the weight of him on her like this. Her chest, her breasts, her stomach, her cheeks, her sex, her inner thighs were all pressed against him. There was so much heat between them that she was hard-pressed to tell where her skin ended and his began. 

The thing that she had not expected in the slightest was the way that it felt that she and him had truly become one.

As she stroked his shaft, wrapped around him in this way, it was very believable to her that it was her shaft. And the more that she believed that, the more her own sex ached and twitched every time he moaned, every time she accelerated the pace or got to just the right angle.

She knew for a fact that her trousers were soaked, leaking her own arousal generously into the peat below her.

Ada hoped that Pasco liked this because she would very much want to do this again. Her hope was soon promoted to knowledge.

“A-Ada… This feels so good.”

A rush of arousal flooded her and she felt as if she were edging, though she knew she was not at risk of coming like this and throwing him into the trees on the other side of the clearing.

“It’s r-really good for me, too,” she said, picking up the pace to demonstrate.

“F-fuck I… I feel so full…

“Do you think it’s the berries?”

“Yes, obviously it’s my ‘berries’ that feel full…”

“No, I mean the ones we ate.”

“The ones we… oh. Maybe? I… I think I’d know if the island… nnnnngh…” His thoughts dissolved into pleasure again.

Pasco’s pre-cum was flowing much more freely than usual and between that and Ada’s lingering saliva, he was plenty slick. Perhaps the excess pre-cum lent some credence to his claims of feeling particularly full, though his balls didn’t look or feel any different than usual. Except that as she cupped them with her other hand, he reacted as if they were significantly more sensitive, and she was rewarded with another droplet.

Though, Ada could imagine that his balls looked and felt different, that they hung pendulously and had become firm and tight, and she liked imagining that very much. She thought he might like the idea of it, too. “You feel full,” she crooned into his year.

He shivered. “T-there’s so much…”

“I want all of it…”

“F-fuck, hah… nnngh, Ada, I want to come…”

“Then come!”

He groaned again, then surfaced somewhat from his blissy haze to look at her apologetically. “C-can I instruct you a bit, then? Or are you trying to torture me?”

“Has it been alright?” Ada felt a tinge of anxiety that he’d been only tolerating her. Or, worse, pretending to like it for her benefit.

“Oh it’s amazing it’s just… different to, y’know, make me come.”

Ada knew exactly what he meant. “Alright, then. Instruct me!”

“O-okay so, a little tighter… not that tight! Yeah, just like that… okay and slower, a bit longer of a stroke… yeah! Gods, yeah… A bit harder on my balls… a bit more… yes! Fuck, nnnngh yes…”

She loved watching him struggle to think, work to find words. Though the arousal sapped his focus, his focus was the only thing that could guide her hand and bring him relief.

And he must have been enjoying that exact predicament. Ada was sure he would have cast her hands aside if he hadn’t been. And she knew that the only thing that he wanted more than to come, was for her to make him come.

So, she focused. Listened to his every gasp, felt his every twitch. The sense that they were one intensified. She was sure her arousal was rising and falling exactly in time with his, even without the locket.

His breathing quickened. Became ragged. Ada anticipated, added to the pressure pulling his balls away from his base, even as the muscles around them tried to pull them closer in.

He moaned. “A-Ada I’m s-so close…”

Her own eyes fluttered sympathetically, her sex clenching in reflex. But, she needed to focus. Her arms ached but she dared not slow down, dared not adjust her grip. Her breathing matched his, even her heartbeat.

“J-just like that, yes!”

“Yeah?” Ada’s eyes centered greedily on his tip where the clear fluid started to flow in earnest and in time with the rhythmic contractions that had begun at his base, under her hands.

“Yeah, yeah, fuck, fuck, Fuck!” He arched his back into her. His fluids pulsed, first under her hand on his balls, then into the air, then over her hand in warm surges. She captured each image in her mind, the height of his spurts, the way it flowed out over his tip. Not only the images, but the way her hand slid even more easily over his shaft, of the powerful contractions through his perineum that pulsed under her fingertips. This was his orgasm, yes, but also it was hers.

He came and came, and then when he had come as much as he usually did, he came harder. Pulse after pulse, white and thick, until his balls were done but the rest of his body was not. A clearer fluid came after, the same that formed his pre-cum, Ada had learned from her books, and this too flowed over her hand.

Pasco moaned in ecstasy as he started to float out onto the afterglow. Still the pleasurable spasms ran over him, under Ada’s fingertips.

She slowed her movements but did not stop, still exactly aligned with his pleasure, still drawing soft moans from his throat and little clear beads from his tip.

He heaved a sigh and with the exhale his body utterly relaxed, from the crown of his head to his toes. Ada let her hands fall aside and let his weight sink into her. She closed her eyes and their hearts still pounded together. She was sure the same blood flowed between them.

They lay there a long moment. But, rather than drifting away, Pasco stirred.

He lifted his weight off of her and before she could complain and draw him back, his lips were on hers.

The kiss was soft, and sensual, and full of desire. His hands cupped her back and lifted her off of the mossy trunk, pulling her into him.

Her sense of touch was triply sensitive, her whole body drenched in arousal. All there was in the world was his skin on her skin, his lips on her lips, her hands in his hair, his chest against her chest, her legs against his hips.

And then, his shaft inside of her.

But this was not sex for the finish, this was sex for the sake of it, for her feeling of being around him, for his feeling of being inside of her. For the way that her very core quivered with the knowledge of him, for the way that she enveloped him.

He was on his knees, her legs were wrapped around his hips, their arms entangled in each other, their cheeks pressed together. Every time their bodies moved against each other her entire being sang. She needed no siren’s magic to feel like she was made of song.

This was not need, it was desire. Yet not just that, it was wanting, but also having

What end was there to such a place?

It seemed as boundless as the ocean.

The end to that perfect moment was not a lover’s end, but a partner’s end.

Pasco heaved a big breath and squeezed her especially close. Then he withdrew and caught her gaze in his eyes of morning fog. “My ankles are getting really sore like this, unfortunately.”

She kissed the tip of his nose. “I suppose I can let you up then.”

She rocked her hips around him one last time, loving the way his eyes fluttered. She squeezed him as she slowly withdrew, feeling all of his shaft with her most sensitive parts.

And then, she sat beside him.

He stood to stretch his legs.

She caught one of his feet in her hand and then kissed his ankle. Once again, her whole awareness was overtaken by just the feeling of his skin against her lips.

His breath caught with what she was sure was a mingle of arousal and ticklishness. She caught his other foot with the same tenderness, sure to lavish her attentions equally.

He offered his hand to her and she took it, and he pulled her to her feet.

Pasco noticed then that her hands were still sticky with him, and he took a moment to lick himself off of her.

Her sense of touch remained deliciously heightened. His tongue was hot and wet, the rippled texture of its surface swirling over her fingers, firm and soft all at once. Just like the rest of him.

He finished licking her off with a grin. “We should go back for a bath, huh?”

She knew that that was code for ‘have more sex by the waterfall’. 

“That is a very tempting offer,” Ada said, “But at the moment I am more actually hungry than sexually hungry.”

“Hm, I shouldn’t have spilled your treat, then.”

Ada sighed happily at the memory of the way that her treat had been quite thoroughly spilled. “No, that was perfect…” But she pulled herself from the memory, lest she lose sight of their lunch plans. “But let’s just splash down the brook and we’ll get clean on the way.”

“Excellent plan, my little dragon.”

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