The mermaid responded with a few, I guess sultry, pops of its mouth.
“Mmhm, that’s right…” I let out before slowly making my way into the water, “W-who’s r-ready to have s-s-some fun?”
The large upper half of the creature made its way towards me cautiously, stopping just a few inches from me while its legs gently kicked and kept it afloat.
“T-t-that’s right,” I stammered as I started to run my hand along her scaly back, “I’m r-r-ready…”
The mermaid clearly enjoyed my somewhat Parkinson’s-like strokes, so much so that it start to brush its fishy mouth against my crotch.
“L-l-l-let’s get it o-on…”
CHAPTER 22
Now, for reasons that should be clear, I’m going to go ahead and skip to the part where I was walking through the jungle sopping wet with my pants on and my soul damaged seemingly beyond repair.
“So,” Red called in a sing-song voice as she descended through the canopy and landed in front of me, “how’d it go?”
“I…” I trailed off, struggling to find the words, “I’d really like it if we didn’t talk about it, okay?”
Red clearly wanted to take a few more jabs, but, after seeing just how distraught I was, went ahead and let them lie.
“If it’s any consolation, you’ve now completed four out of five.” Red said in a voice that I’m sure was supposed to be cheerful but instead came across as mocking.
“Four out of five?” I practically sobbed, “I t-thought I was done?”
Red regarded me with confusion for a few seconds then opened her mouth wide as she caught my meaning, “Oh, no, no, no. I’m talking about with me,” she said, allowing me to breathe a sigh of relief, “yeah, no, you’re done getting resources for the elves. Speaking of, did you get the eggs?”
“The… eggs?” I asked, dreading the thought of returning to the pond, “What eggs?”
“The caviar?” Red replied as if it clarified anything, “The stuff you were supposed to scoop up after you… did your business?”
“You never said anything about any eggs!”
“Yes, well, I thought it was implied,” Red said, apparently deciding that she was too good to even acknowledge that I’d shouted, “what other resource would you be getting after having… relations with her?”
“That’s not how fish reproduction works.” I snapped, my stammering and sobbing giving way to a small fire that was brewing in my belly before dying down again as the sheer effort weakened my emotional psychological state again, “Sorry, I… I guess I’ll just go back then…”
“Wait,” Red sighed, catching me by the shoulder as I turned to plod back to the water, “I’ll go get them. You head home and have some rest, maybe have yourself a good, long shower.”
I smiled a little at that, but felt even sadder as I realized I did not, in fact, have a shower.
“I don’t think… I don’t think I can walk all the way back.” I let out with a tired breath as I turned back to face her.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get you home.” Red said cheerfully.
“No, no, no,” I replied, shaking my head desperately, “ain’t no way in Hell I’m flying again today.”
Red let out an amused huff and shook her head, “Who said anything about flying?”
From there things get a little hazy.
I think I remember Red snapping her fingers, but it was hard to recall after feeling like I’d spent both a nanosecond and an eternity in some weird, LSD-made, vibrantly-colored world between worlds before finally landing at the shelter with an involuntary neck twitch and a fart.
I was next to the pit and facing the bed where Cassie and Fern were locked in a very amorous make out session.
They hadn’t noticed me though, even with my toot, and while what I was seeing would be the kind of thing that had me fully erect in record time under normal circumstances, I couldn’t help but feel like my two options were walk away or pass out where I stood.
So, naturally, I went with option three and cleared my throat, surprising the holy Hell out of them.
“Glad to see you two are still getting along,” I said as I stumbled my way towards the bed, “mind if I go ahead and get some sleep though?”
“Or…” Cassie replied after she recovered from the initial shock of my appearance, “you could have a little fun with us.”
“I’d love to,” I said before flopping onto the mattress, “but right now I just need some sleep.”
The girls were clearly disappointed by that answer, proven by the audible huffs I received from both of them.
Hell, I was kind of disappointed too, but the truth was I needed some recovery time and to be able to pretend what I’d just experienced was some crazy nightmare, and the girls were just going to have to live with that.
I know that’s probably not the best way of looking at it, although there was a part of me that suggested that that was a form of further improvement for both my confidence and general psyche.
I’d denied the threesome the first time around, sure, but that was entirely based on fears of inadequacy not because I genuinely wanted to sleep rather than get laid.
Naturally, there was also a part of me that was terrified I’d forever damaged my sex-drive by going in with the mermaid too early, however I was able to quickly convince that section of my brain that my motor was not only still capable of running, but that it was also probably a lot healthier than just wanting to smash all the time.
Yes, I just referred to sex as ‘smash’, deal with it.
Anyway, the good news is that the whole going to sleep thing totally worked.
Within minutes I was having nightmares and flashbacks to what I’d done occasionally punctured by sounds I could’ve sworn were real.
Things like the creature crying out, the barking tone of Jesse getting in a fight, and the undeniable crackle of something fleshy being burned.
Dreams are weird, huh?
CHAPTER 23
“Hey, Dax, wake up.” Jesse said, having climbed up onto the bed and flopped down beside me, “Seriously, dude, the sun came up hours ago.”
“Just let me sleep…” I groaned.
“No. I’m bored and the girls are off doing… somethin’ important I think. C’mon, you wouldn’t leave a friend to die of boredom, would you?”
“I don’t know, maybe?” I mumbled, burying my face deeper into the mattress.
As much as I was resisting getting up, I have to admit I actually didn’t have much of a problem with it.
Normally my body seemed to be actively trying to keep me down, but that morning I could almost feel my blood pumping and the chemicals that told my brain to get up flowing.
“Feelin’ healthier, eh?” Jesse chuckled, “You have a certain… glow about you.”
“A glow?” I asked with a grin as I reluctantly got up to face him, “What am I, pregnant?”
“Nah, not pregnancy glow, more like…” Jesse trailed off as I clearly desperately tried to think of a less weird thing to say, “more like you just got your first proper sleep in about ten years.”
“Heh, yeah, I’m feelin’ that.” I chuckled with an unnecessary groan like I was just doing it out of pattern.
And that’s when the pieces of the puzzle started to slip into place and I noticed the bigger changes.
Well, smaller.
My clothes were looser, my arms felt less flabby, and as I lifted up my shirt it became clear that I’d definitely become fitter overnight.
I didn’t have six-pack abs or anything, but everything looked decidedly tighter and like it was sitting in the right place.
“What happened?” I asked with amusement as I got out of the bed and appreciated my newly acquired body.
“Benefits of livin’ in a virtual world,” Jesse replied with a smile, “guessin’ it needed you to go to sleep in order to kick in for some reason…”
“Probably just so I didn’t get too shocked,” I joked before noticing an odd smell rea
ching my nose, “what’s that?”
“What’s what?” Jesse asked.
“That smell?” I replied, “Did you cook breakfast?”
“Do I look like I cook breakfa-oh…” Jesse let out before sucking his teeth and climbing off the bed, “Yeah, that uh… That fish person came into the camp and she… Well, she sort of fell into the pit.”
“What?” I asked, pretending I wasn’t silently grateful that the creature of my nightmares didn’t make it into the bed with me, “Is it-she alright?”
“Uh… No,” Jesse replied before gesturing for me to follow him to the pit, “you see, she kind of sort snapped in half when she fell in, and she was just screamin’ and screamin’, so I went ahead and…”
“Oh my God…” I muttered as I reached the mouth of the pit and saw what was inside, “You cooked her!?”
“Yes,” Jesse said with a nod, “yes I did. Tell you what, it was a right bitch without thumbs, heh…”
And that’s when I noticed the even more disturbing thing.
“Did you… did you eat her?”
“No!” Jesse shouted defensively, “I mean, of course not, there was too much…”
I rubbed my brow at that and shook my head, “Did you or did you not eat any part of her?”
Jesse was silent for a few seconds, then nodded, “Only about half.”
It was at that point that my brow rubbing turned into a slightly more aggressive squeezing of the bridge of my nose.
“I take it that that is… bad?” Jesse said.
“Yes, Jesse, eating people is bad.”
“Hey, she was only half people.” Jesse replied, finally deciding to go on the defensive.
“Okay, and which half of her did you eat?” I asked, already knowing the answer after seeing the mess in the pit.
“I don’t know,” Jesse said, clearly not wanting to tell me, “about half of each?”
“See, now I’m uncomfortable.” I murmured before walking away from the pit to get away from the smell.
“How come?”
“Well, you have a taste for… man-meat now.”
Jesse laughed at that, “I’m pretty sure you’ve got me mixed up with one of the girls there, friend.”
“I’m serious, dude,” I said, trying to hide the fact that I was smiling at his joke, “what if I wake up and you’re gnawin’ down on my foot or something.”
“Heh, don’t be ridiculous,” Jesse scoffed as I took a seat on the bed, “I’d bite your neck first, make sure you can’t fight back.”
“That ain’t funny,” I accidently chuckled before giving in and letting him see my grin, “but alright, I’m goin’ to go ahead and trust that you aren’t going to eat me the first chance you get.”
“Go right ahead believin’ that,” Jesse said with a smile, “you never know, I might’ve gotten a taste for it.”
I went to respond with something snarky and say something about my newfound strength allowing me to wrestle and eat him first, but was stopped as the girls returned from around the back of the shelter.
“You two been having a laugh I see?” Red said with an odd amount of sternness.
“Uh, yeah? Is that a problem?” I chuckled as the two other girls came into view, both absolutely slathered with mud.
“Little bit, yeah.” Cassie replied, making a show of the cutlass she had in her hand, “We had to go see the elves this morning.”
“Yeah?” I said with a smile, “Did it go well?”
“No,” the sword-wielding Fern interjected before Cassie could open her mouth, “turns out we not only had to give the eggs, but we also had to challenge them in combat.”
“Oh shit, are you alright?”
And that’s when all three of the girls decided they couldn’t hold in their smiles anymore.
“Yeah, we’re alright,” Cassie said, “turns out the combat was a mud wrestle and, well… it was a lot of fun.”
At first I was like ‘Yeah, wrestling in the mud is always going to be fun’ but then my brain caught up.
“Oh… Oh… So, uh, how much fun?” I asked, stealthily hiding my erection by scratch my thigh and pulling my pants up.
“Enough fun to forget about how you left us emptyhanded.” Fern replied, pointing her sword at me.
I think that was right about the time the girls noticed there was something different about me.
“Is it just me…” Cassie trailed off as she looked me up and down curiously, “or is his potbelly gone?”
“Hey, who said I had a potbelly?”
Fern snorted a bit at that, “Sorry, but it wasn’t like anyone had to say anything. Don’t get me wrong, you didn’t look particularly bad, it’s just now you’re a bit less…”
“Cushiony,” Cassie finished with a nod, “less cushiony.”
I gave them both a frown that didn’t last long before letting out an amused huff and climbing out of the bed, “It would’ve been nice if you’d have said something.”
“And come off as the bitch who called you fat?” Cassie laughed, “Yeah, because everyone wants to be that person.”
“Alright, fair enough,” I sighed with a smile, “so, where are the elves?”
“Here,” an unfamiliar voice called over, drawing my attention over to the three mud-covered women coming out of the jungle to my left, “interesting to see that you’re awake.”
“Why is everyone saying that?” I chuckled, not bothering to point out the fact that the elves could talk and sounded surprisingly sassy.
“Because when you send other people to deal with us it makes it seem like you aren’t the kind of person who likes to do much of anything useful.” one of the other elves, slightly younger than the first, replied.
“Did you tell them I sent you?” I asked Red directly, knowing that if anyone wanted to stir that particular pot, it would be her.
“I merely didn’t dissuade them of that belief,” Red said innocently, “I mean, it’s not like I put the words in their mouth.”
“Didn’t have to,” the third and final, and undeniably cutest, of the group said, giving me eerily vivid flashbacks of a girl I had a crush on before college, “you being asleep at this time says more than she ever could.”
“I had a big night,” I replied, finally deciding that I wasn’t going to take crap from them all day, “besides, you don’t have to be here if you don’t want to.”
“And why wouldn’t we want to stay?” the first asked as she and the others took a self-guided tour around the shelter grounds, “You have a comfy place to sleep, a Creator, and more than enough resources to ensure we don’t ever starve.”
“Alright, better point, you don’t have to stay if I don’t want you to.” I said forcefully, “If you are just going to come here and give me Hell, well you can go ahead and find somewhere else to stay.”
The first, who I was becoming increasingly sure was the leader, stopped walking and turned to face me, a mix of curiosity and anger wrapping her expression, “You have balls, I’ll give you that.”
“I just have a Toolbox,” I replied, realizing only after I’d opened my mouth that I was arguing against admitting I had testicles, “and that means I don’t have to take shit from a couple of spear-wielding chicks from the forest.”
Again, the elves were thrown.
I have to admit, it felt pretty good to be able to shock people silent with something that wasn’t just embarrassing for me like falling down stairs or getting hit in the face with large rock.
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t getting off on the power trip or anything, it just didn’t exactly suck to be the strongest voice in the room.
Well, jungle.
“Okay, so maybe we misjudged you,” the second elf said, “we apologize.”
The other two clearly weren’t as apologetic, but at the same time they certainly weren’t eager to take another swing at me.
“It’s all good.” I replied after few seconds of letting them stew, “Now, have the girls filled you in wit
h what we want to do?”
“A whole bunch of deforestation with no regard for how it affects the local ecosystem?” the third asked, “Yeah, they may have mentioned it.”
“Good,” I said with a smile, ignoring the cattiness, “in which case I’m going to go ahead and give you… these and let you get started.”
Okay, I was pretty freaking impressed with myself after making an axe appear in each of girls hands, with the exception of Red, without so much as a single fumble.
Again, I wasn’t that desperate to show how big and strong I was with my Toolbox, but it certainly didn’t hurt my ego to be able to pull off something that intricate.
“So, what? We’re supposed to just go hacking away?” the second elf asked with no small amount of irritation in her voice.
“No, you’ll be following Cassie’s instruction.” I replied, gesturing to the surprised Cassie, “She knows the layout.”
“Mmhm,” Cassie added as she struggled to think of something to say, “and Fern here will make sure your technique is good.”
That confused both Fern and I, but we decided to go ahead and not say anything that could potentially undermine Cassie’s authority.
“Sounds like you’ve all got jobs then,” I said before turning my attention to Red and Jesse, “you two mind coming with me to the beach while the rest of these guys get to work?”
“Not at all.” Red replied with a smile, seeing and ignoring the disappointed look Jesse was aiming at the two of us.
I didn’t understand it then, but I think now that it might have had something to do with the fact that he was worried she was slipping in on his ‘territory’.
In my defense, there wasn’t really a whole lot of time for me to think on it before I’d started walking towards the beach, smiling as I passed the elves and giving them a polite nod.
And from there, we travelled in silence.
It was a short distance, yes, but I made sure we went a while up the beach before finally stopping and flopping down onto the sand with an almost explosive huff.
“Well, that was fun…” I murmured before turning my attention to Red as she took a seat beside me, “Why’d you have to go and act like I was King Douche?”
Build-A-Harem- The Island Collection Page 24
