I knocked at the door to Tzila’s room.

It took her a moment to respond, and when she did it was with a single word, “Enter.” It had been hours since Cindy came out and delivered her report, and as I opened the door and looked inside, I was curious about what I’d find.

The Jinn was seated on the edge of the bed. She wore a loose t-shirt and a set of baggy cotton pants which I thought I recognized from her very first trip to my apartment. Her glossy black hair was neatly tied behind her head in a simple ponytail, and she was looking down into the pages of a large leather-bound book that lay open across her knees.

She turned to face me only after she reached the end of her paragraph. The dim glow of her eyes stood out in the low light when they met mine, and I was surprised by what I saw inside. Rather than the frustration or shame she’d displayed in her outburst last night, the expression she wore was one of resolve—jaw set, back stiff and upright, neither accusation nor anger on her face.

It might have just been projection, but I thought that the slight way she pursed her pink cupid’s bow lips and the barely perceptible widening of her eyes, suggested she might even be feeling a glimmer of hope for her future.

I waited for a moment to see if she would address me and take a level of initiative in the conversation. When she didn’t, I gestured at the open space in front of the bed and asked, “Do you mind if I come in?”

Her face remained placid and her airy voice flowed evenly and without stutter as she replied, “It is your home, Master, you may go wherever you please.” I rolled my eyes a little at that. I was fairly certain she saw it, but if she did, she didn’t react.

“You are of course factually correct, my name is the one on the lease, but you know full well that I’m trying to treat you respectfully and with as much autonomy and choice as I’m able to arrange. If you don’t want me to be here, tell me that.”

She froze for a moment. It was a brief hesitation, but the way her shoulders stiffened, then relaxed, spoke to the inner conflict that Cindy had described. She tried to speak but only got as far as “I-“ before she stopped again. She closed her mouth, took a breath through her nose, then tried again. “I appreciate what you are trying to do for me, Master.”

I watched her face for a moment, a little surprised by the admission. While I knew that she was still magically compelled to be honest, I didn’t know exactly how that would manifest. It wasn’t like the magic gave her flawless knowledge of her own mental state, and self-deception could be insidious. Before I could follow up or clarify, though, she gently closed the book in her lap and set it aside. One hand beckoned me forward as she added, “In answer to your question, no, I do not mind if you come in. Please, join me.”

I stepped into a neat and tidy room. The overhead light was on to aid in her reading, but the light the cheap bulb cast was dim and while it revealed that the Jinn had carefully put away her clothes in the currently open closet, it also exposed the startling lack of almost everything else.

This bedroom wasn’t one that had gotten frequent use prior to Tzila’s arrival. Sometimes someone needed a quick place to nap or sleep alone, but otherwise it was little more than an overflow closet.

A brief irrational pang of guilt pinged across my mind and accused me of failing to enrich the Jinn. It passed quickly as I reminded myself that not only was it not my responsibility to entertain her, but she had been in the middle of reading one of Zarina’s books when I arrived, and she was also free to wander around the apartments if she had desired.

The only thing keeping her here had been embarrassment and shame, and that was ultimately what I was here to try to fix.

I checked my Gift as I considered my words. There were ways I could put my foot in my mouth badly enough to fuck this up, but for the most part, the immediate future was a rich field of blue.

“Cindy told me what the two of you talked about.” I met Tzila’s gaze as I addressed her. I wanted to make sure she could see my expression and focused on keeping my words as simple, direct, and guileless as I could. “I know that she can be- she can be a lot. But for all that she sees the world through a very, very specific lens, she’s also a millennia-old intelligent creature with a surprising degree of insight into the motivations of other beings.”

The princess—whose birth predated Christianity by centuries—held my gaze in silence and allowed me to get to whatever point I was making without interruption. “I also know that she does have some very specific preferences, though, so in order to make sure I didn’t somehow leave a crack in her orders that gave her room to deceive me, I’m going to ask you a question.”

Tzila continued to stare into my eyes, but her expression shifted subtly—a slight parting of her lips and a widening of her eyes that I only caught because of how closely I was watching. “I’m going to order you to spend the next day thinking about your answer. Not, like, constantly, I want you to go on about things, eating and drinking and whatever else, but I want you to focus a substantial amount of your next twenty-four hours on making sure that the answer you give is as correct and comprehensive as you can manage. Once that time has passed, you’re going to give me a simple, direct answer and the answer you give is going to determine what I do and how I treat you going forward.”

I paused to give her the chance to ask a question. When she didn’t, I continued, “My question is this: if you could somehow accept the part of you that has and experiences the submissive needs and desires you expressed in the fantasy you described last night, would you ultimately be happier for it?”

She flinched back, but just as before it was a small and reflexive gesture, and I watched her deliberately force herself to sit straight and overcome it. Before she could speak, I reminded her, “I need you to keep in mind that I ordered you to give an honest answer, and by that I mean not just speaking truthfully, but also being as honest with yourself as you are able.” Her lips had started to drift further open, but at the reminder they snapped shut into a thin line.

“I have already made something clear to everyone else in my apartment.” Tzila’s eyes narrowed at that pronouncement and she again focused her attention on my face. “What you shared last night, and the outburst later? For the next twenty-four hours, that didn’t happen. You didn’t say anything about your fantasy, or about me. You went out and had a party with us, we all had fun, and nothing else happened. You’re welcome to take advantage of that however you like. Come and go, talk to people, and no one is going to say a single thing about it, or treat you any differently from the day before. And-“

I stared into her glowing eyes and waited for a moment to make sure she was paying attention before I continued. “If the answer you give me tomorrow is ‘no’, that’s how it’s going to remain. No one will bring it up again. We just move on with our lives and figure out what to do next. Now-“ I gestured over towards the still open door to her room to indicate the hallway beyond.

“Aubrette should have just about finished putting the final touches on a really nice dinner from a French restaurant that does take-out not far from here, and I would love to have you join us.” I tried to keep my tone light and even, and while it felt a little forced, I felt like it did the job.

Tzila stared up at me in silence for a moment more, and then reached her hand up towards me.

I took it, and helped pull her to her feet.

“I would like that very much.”

* * *

Dinner was, as expected, wonderful.

While the restaurant didn’t offer a huge variety of dishes, everything on their menu was incredible. I’d asked Aubrette to tap into her magic a little more deeply than usual by requesting that she conjure up a dinner table large enough that—after I had Cindy move the couch and chairs—we were all able to sit around it together.

Doing so meant that the Sidhe noblewoman didn’t get to spend quite as much focus on enjoying the food as the rest of us since she was paying more attention to her magic than usual, but I’d promised to find a way to make it up to her later. The look on her face when I’d whispered into her ear some of my ideas for how to do that told me she thought the extra effort was a worthwhile investment in her future.

In a way, dinner was a toned-down mirror of the events of the night before. The food was fancy, we were all seated together, and there was a light, festive mood in the air, but we were at home in my apartment rather than out on the town.

Exactly as I had requested, no one so much as mentioned Tzila’s confession. Instead, conversation around the table was fairly casual, focused on near future plans, and eventually talk meandered into a roundtable as we listed various features we hoped to eventually find in a house. Aubrette started taking notes, and by the time we were done, she had compiled quite a list.

We went on for much longer than I’d expected, and drank our way through a few bottles of wine while we chatted around the table. The conversation wasn’t exactly restrained, particularly since the topic of restraints came up at one point. Rose very matter-of-factly ticked off a list of no fewer than six different items of very specific bondage equipment that she wanted to have available for her in a dedicated room in the house. That was brushed over so we didn’t get sidetracked, but I kept it in mind as a topic to revisit soon. Aside from that, it was neither especially lewd or overly sexual.

Instead, it was wonderfully, gratifyingly comfortable.

When the momentum of the conversation eventually slowed down, I helped Cindy return the couch and chairs to where they belonged while Aubrette dismissed the dining table and helped Zarina put away dishes, then we all settled in to watch a movie.

Sara hadn’t returned from her apartment, so I wound up sandwiched between Zarina and Rose. Aubrette sat on a cushion on the floor at Cindy’s feet while the latter carefully brushed out her hair.

I don’t think she actually needed it. As thick and lush as the redhead’s gorgeous curls were, she never needed to spend any effort on tangles, and no matter how sweaty I got her, after a quick shower she was as fresh and fragrant as though she’d spent an hour primping before a mirror. Glamour was powerful stuff.

She enjoyed it, though, and it kept Cindy out of trouble, so I wasn’t about to comment.

Tzila took the remaining chair, and we started to watch The Fellowship of the Ring.

Halfway through, I asked Aubrette to hand out movie-theater style popcorn to everyone, because why not?

The evening went by in a way that was honestly amazing. It felt really, really nice to be able to just sit back and relax. We didn’t have vampires coming after us, we’d driven off a morally repugnant witch after she’d tried to tear my family apart, and we’d managed to free Tzila from a vile slaveholder in the process.

It was nice, and almost shockingly normal. Rose and Zarina made for fantastic cuddles, and we all feasted on popcorn and enjoyed one of the best films ever made.

When the movie ended, Tzila rose and excused herself. The halting rhythm of her steps as she wandered towards the other apartment made it obvious the Jinn was lost in thought, and I watched her in silence until she disappeared down the hall.

I kissed the women on either side of me, then managed to wriggle free and stand. “Rose-“ I turned around to extend my hands down to my two recent snuggle-buddies. “-I have an answer about restraints that I’m going to need to dig out of you. Coincidentally, Aubrette-” I turned and gave the suddenly blushing Fae noblewoman a pointed look, “-I believe I promised you a reward for your extra efforts tonight.”

I turned and addressed the other two women in the room, each in turn. “My lovely wizard and my Sinful demon, I’m going to have to ask you to lend your services to that endeavor, so I believe I must insist that all of you join me in my bedroom for the remainder of the evening.”

* * *

“So, you mentioned something tonight that I think merits an explanation.”

I raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Rose as I walked a slow circuit around her nude body.

The Puca’s head kept moving as she alternated between staring at Aubrette and trying to keep me in her view.

The redhead in question was spreadeagled on her back, though her head was propped up by a pillow to ensure she could see Rose in turn. This was a part of Aubrette’s reward, after all, and I wanted to make sure she had a good view.

The proceedings had kicked off when I’d asked everyone to get naked. It was somewhat fascinating to see the different ways that everyone went about that same task, and not just because of the sudden feast of female flesh it revealed. Cindy all but tore at her clothes, and only avoided actually ripping them off by the narrowest of margins—a real concern for the Sin Demon—while Aubrette, for all that she appeared to be the most excited, was the least efficient in accomplishing the task. For each moment her smooth and graceful movements saved, the redhead lost twice as much in flustered hesitation.

Rose was almost businesslike in her disrobing, as though she had been waiting for the chance to do exactly that and had already plotted out her best course. Her curves swung into view with almost startling rapidity, and while she waited for everyone to catch up, she slinked over to me so as soon as I’d rid myself of my own attire she could press her enormous rack against me.

Zarina sauntered in behind the rest of us. The wizard casually stripped off her clothing with a smile, obviously pleased with the chance to do something for me.

The expression had spread across her face when I spelled out what I had in mind and asked her to help me enact my will. She requested a kiss in exchange, and after I pulled back from her plump lips, she thanked me for allowing her to be included in my life.

The smile on her face seemed so genuinely happy that I felt a warm glow inside my chest. I still fully intended to find a way to break the magic that controlled her, but the joy she expressed at her participation felt like she might actually look back at this with fondness when we found a way to return her to independence. I’d gotten to know Zarina pretty well at this point, and while I didn’t think she would have ever had the idea to participate in an activity like this on her own, I’d realized that she was actually open minded enough that if someone had suggested it she might have been willing to at least give it a try.

Even without the super-extended charm spell that kept her intensely enamored of me, once she figured out that I genuinely wasn’t doing anything to anyone against their will, we might’ve wound up becoming friends.

Once we were all undressed, Cindy and I conspired to bind Aubrette to the bed. Her arms and legs were tied to the bedposts with simple lengths of rope as I demonstrated my recently increased proficiency with knots.

Being able to very quickly tie down a woman wasn’t a talent I was likely to put on a resume, but between Aubrette and Rose I’d gotten a lot more practice than I ever would’ve expected. For the former, I felt like I well understood why she got as much out of being tied to something as she did. The redhead was a massive voyeur, and being tied to a chair or—as in this case—a bed, allowed her to indulge that particular fetish, while also feeding her shame at having her kinks so nakedly laid bare.

Rather than suppressing her lust, the shame conspired to compound it, and left her a gently writhing horny mess as soon as she realized what was going on.

One last piece of equipment completed the look. A little red rubber ball gag held her lips open, buckled into place behind her head by a simple strip of leather. Between the gag and her ropes, the only actions available to the former noblewoman were to watch, to writhe, to drool, and to moan.

Snuggled up alongside the curvaceous Sidhe was Cindy’s slender figure.

The demon’s right hand trailed its way up and down the soft curves of Aubrette’s pale abdomen, leaving the latter’s hips trembling in anticipation. Rather than rewarding that expectation, however, her hand slid higher up the other woman’s torso, teasing and stroking along sensitive skin to leave the redhead a trembling moaning mess. Every time Cindy’s delicate fingernails flicked their way over a stiff pink nipple, they drew another moan and another buck of the former noble’s hips.

It took an effort of will to tear my eyes away from the sight of the Sin Demon teasing my fairy concubine. I had to take a moment and center myself after I did so, before finally turning my eyes onto the woman right in front of me.

It was Rose. She was hovering in the air.

Specifically, the Puca’s torso was supported by a disk of floating golden arcane energy, while her elbows and knees rested against further bands of that same energy, to suspend her a few feet above the floor of my apartment bedroom.

I walked around her once more as I continued to examine her.

I had realized, as I listened to Rose’s list of items she fully intended to add to some sort of BDSM dungeon to my house, that I hadn’t ever really had a serious conversation with the Puca about her fetish. I’d had her fill out a checklist I’d found online to help me figure out what kinds of things she might enjoy, once it had become obvious that I was going to have her sticking around in my life. Even if I hadn’t, she’d made her preferences pretty clear the night she’d all but skipped her way in front of me, beckoned for me to lean down, and when I had, whispered hotly into my ear.

“You should drag me into your room, tie my arms and legs to your bedposts and spend twenty minutes playing with my tits before you finally decide to fuck me.”

At the time, I’d been far more occupied with doing exactly that to actually ask the curvy little Goth why it was, exactly, she’d suggested that course of action.

The torrent of arousal that had leaked out of her pretty little pussy the moment her arms and legs were bound was all the explanation for her request that I had needed.

But she not only knew what a Saint Anthony’s Cross was off the top of her head, she could list off three or four different things that I could do with, to, or on her while she was tied to it. That merited a little deeper exploration.

The Arcane spellwork that held her immobile now fell outside of her experience. She’d actually complimented the wizard on it quite cheerfully as she’d been lifted into the air and bent over on all fours. I was pretty certain that Zarina’s spellwork was improvised—I really had to hope that the Malle family didn’t have a dedicated spell designed to wrap the arms and legs of a woman in magical bindings, then elevate her to dick height, face down and ass up.

Because that’s exactly what she’d done, and she’d made it look pretty easy. Watching the way the curvy wizard’s hands moved as she wove a tapestry of golden threads to form the bonds that held my fairy mount had been hypnotic, as much because of the swift surety of her motions as because of the allure of her attractive body.

I let my hand reach down and caress the Puca’s well padded backside, and she did her best to wriggle her hips at me despite the bonds. I smacked her ass in response—not hard, but enough to make a satisfying slapping noise—then started talking as I moved in front of her.

“So, Rose. I felt like we should talk, and given your behavior earlier tonight, it seemed fitting that I should make sure your mind was on the topic.”

I gestured to her ethereal bonds as I stepped in front of her, as though it might have escaped her attention that she’d been magically bound and forced into a position that would put her neatly shaved little Puca pussy at about the same elevation as my dick. Though, as I stood in front of the Puca and took in her expression, it might actually be possible that she hadn’t noticed. Her golden eyes shone with interest as they fixed on my erection, and when I experimentally wiggled my hips a little, I watched them dart side to side in time with the motions of my dick.

“You see, when you came into my house, you just fit right in. Just as soon as you met me, you’d already taken it in stride that I was fucking both Cindy and Aubrette. Together. At the same time. Didn’t bat an eye.”

“Yup, that sounds about right.” Rose’s tone was deliberately playful, but it also sounded a little distracted. I rolled my eyes and continued walking around her until my dick was out of line of sight and she started paying attention to my words.

“The fact that you hopped right into my bed yourself the same night was a little surprising, all things considered, but given the compulsion you’d described and the fact that, yeah, I was absolutely thinking about fucking your tits, I put two and two together.”

“Yeah. I mean, you’re nice enough looking, you seemed decent, if you had those two hotties hanging off of you all night, there had to be something to you. It seemed like I was gonna wind up on your dick no matter what either you or I had to say about it, and I figured what the fuck, right? Might as well enjoy it.”

I laughed. She had slipped into her brogue and I genuinely wasn’t sure if she was doing it unconsciously, or as a bit to play up her folksy response. I leaned forward to peer at her, and she pursed her glossy black lips at me and blew me a kiss.

That earned her another laugh, and another quick slap on her ass. She giggled and tried to wiggle it at me.

“You made it pretty fucking clear that you like being tied down, held down, bound, restrained, whatever anyone has ever thought of to stop you from moving. You mentioned something about a vacuum bed? Anyway- It made me realize I’d never gotten you to actually tell me what it was about being tied down that gets you-“

I slipped my fingers between the Puca’s pale thighs, then dragged them slowly up. When my fingertips pressed against the slick lips of her cunt the flood of moisture that all but gushed out to greet me was all the illustration of my point I needed. “-like this. So, my playful little Puca, I’m going to keep you here, tied up and at my mercy, until I can drag the answer out of you. I’m going to amuse myself with your hot fairy body, while your fairy princess friend-“

The affronted wordless grunt that escaped Aubrette’s gag as she tried to protest her actual rank in the Fairy court caused a grin to flash across my lips, and it was my turn to blow a kiss, this time at the redhead tied up on the bed. I noticed that Cindy’s hand was mirroring my motions along Rose’s pussy, and I experimentally lifted my hand to cup the Puca’s hot cunt.

The lithe blonde demon mirrored the motion instantly, and her fingers wrapped over the Sidhe’s dripping vulva.

I slid my fingers up and caressed them along Rose’s slick and swollen outer lips, drawing a moan from the Puca.

The sound was echoed from atop my bed as Cindy’s fingers traced an identical path along Aubrette’s equally drooling cunt.

I gently pressed my index and middle fingers into Rose’s channel and experimentally buried them to the second knuckle.

For the next minute or so, I fingered the two women—one of them by proxy—and listened to the harmony of their moans.

I was brought to an abrupt halt when Rose responded in a surprisingly chipper tone, “Sure! Only, Master Jack, Sir- Would it be alright if I just told you up front, it’s not that complicated, but—hear me out—after I’m done answering your question then—this is the good part—then you keep me here, tied down, and fuck me. And, you know, other things if you want, there’s a flogger in the second drawer of your dresser. That way I can focus on your dick instead of, you know, trying to figure out how to draw things out.”

When I hesitated in response to her suggestion, she immediately added, “Plus, that way I’ll have more brainpower available to help me figure out how to get you to call me your good little fairy slut again. I feel like it’s been a couple days, and it’s hard to be inventive when the only thing I can do is kind of twerk on you a little and let my pussy give you the best massage it can.”

“You make a persuasive argument. Proceed.”

“I like getting caught.”

Rose tried to shrug, but her movements were too constrained for the gesture to really work.

After a moment she continued, “Not necessarily by anyone, mind you, but my first boyfriend—well, not, my first first boyfriend, but the first one I got busy with a lot—liked pranks. It’s how my friend introduced me to him. Told me that he thought he was good at them, pranks and practical jokes.”

My head spun a little at the sudden change of pace. I felt like the moment was slipping away from me, as though any control I’d had over what was going on had just slipped away in an instant.

Then I felt the Puca’s channel squeeze down around my digits and I let out a quiet laugh. I should’ve known better than to expect the Puca to play it straight. That wasn’t her game.

I started pumping my fingers in and out of her pussy at a steady pace, fucking her with two digits in an attempt to make it harder for her to remain coherent. If that’s how she wanted things, I was perfectly capable of playing that game.

“I—of course—had to show him how wrong he was. Fuckthat’sgood.” I added my other hand to the mix, leaning forward so I could reach around the Puca’s hips to find her clit.

“So I did. Repeatedly. For about a month. I maaaay have taken it a little too far at some point, though. There was gaslighting involved, and some edits on Wikipedia—oh, fuck, right there, yes—He- honestly, it’s kind’ve sad. We wound up breaking up over it, because he really couldn’t handle not being the best at everything. But right before that, there was this thing with some flour and he was kinda covered in it, but it got him really angry and aggressive for a minute.”

I twisted my right hand. Instead of pumping my fingers into the curvy fairy I curled them and rubbed along the rough patch of skin not far inside her cunt, and she had to pause her story to let out a string of expletives in response.

“Fuck, yes, my cunt, mmm! Right there, rub my little horny cunt like- like- fuck! Anyway—fuck, yes—you get the picture. He got all scared and worried about taking things too far, because he was actually a pretty sweet boy under all of it, but it also meant he didn’t ever, you know, do anything about the fact that I was left there dripping through my panties, all worked up and nowhere to go when he stormed off.”

I slipped my fingers out of the fairy and stepped around behind her. Exactly as she’d promised, she wiggled her hips as best she could to try to line up her pussy with my dick.

My fingers wrapped around her hips to hold them steady, as I further locked down her range of motion. When I tightened my grip, the Puca could do little more than squirm ineffectively, and I held her firmly in place as I moved my own hips toward her. I stopped when I felt the head of my cock nudge apart her slick wet lips.

“Poor thing. So that turned you on to bondage somehow?”

Rose let out a little whimpering whine when I refused to immediately thrust myself forward. She turned her head as best she could to glare at me over her shoulder, and I grinned down at her.

“I mean- I’d say it led me down the path. I thought about why I’d felt the way I had for absolutely months after, and when I wasn’t locked in my room frigging my barely legal teenage fairy pussy absolutely sloppy, I was trying to figure out what exactly it was about the whole encounter that made me feel the way I did.”

My dick twitched, and she immediately asked, “Oh, was that because of me? I bet I could manage barely legal teenage fairy Rose if you want her. If I can manage to change myself into Cindy for a prank, I bet I can do teenage me. My tits weren’t quite as big then, but I can get down between your knees and call you ‘Mister’-“

I smacked her ass again. I had to remove my hand from her hip to do it, though, and she took advantage of the slack by wiggling herself back against me. She only managed to push herself down onto the first inch or so of my dick in the process, thanks to Zarina’s magic bindings, but it was more than I expected. The smack of my palm across her ass got her back on track, though, and as she continued I started to slowly move my hips, just gently teasing and probing the shallow reaches of the Puca’s pussy with the very head of my cock so I could revel in the way her inner muscles rippled and massaged their way around me.

“What I eventually figured was that it was the thought of being made to face the consequences that did it for me. See, I’m the best, and I’ve always been the best, and I’m adorable. My parents loved me and play the game too, and teachers either couldn’t prove a thing, or couldn’t stay mad at me—or both—and I’d never really had to face the music, so to speak.”

Motion caught my eye and I looked up across the room. Cindy, lacking my built in equipment, had grabbed a large purple vibrator out of a drawer and had shifted her way down between Aubrette’s legs. Now half prone towards the foot of the bed with her torso propped up by her elbows, she steadily teased the redhead’s lightly furred pussy with the tip of the silicone device to mirror my own motions without even looking at me.

“So—fuck yes, more please!—there might have been a part of my mind that was all really good and shocked when I—oh fuck yes, just like that!—when I found out it was Puca’s day that you caught me, but most of the rest of me-“

I’d built up speed as she went, and was now lazily sawing the full length of my cock into the curvy Goth’s welcoming little cunt.

“-froze up good when I realized just how much I’d been caught. I got real hot and gooey when I melted, and I didn’t get back around to actual coherent thought until some time after I’d gotten a good couple tastes of your dick.”

My fingers squeezed the Puca’s hips and dug into her flesh as I built up speed steadily. Before long, the sound of her speech was punctuated by the steady slap of my thighs against hers.

“But I didn’t have that yet, so little not quite jailbait nineteen-year-old me went and dug into the library and did a bunch of reading, then I found a nice group of people who owned a public dungeon and I started hanging out there some evenings. Very educational, and if my rider can also be my sugar daddy and hook his mount up with a dungeon of her own, he’ll be rewarded with a very horny fairy anytime he wants her.”

My speed continued to increase, and Rose finished in a rush, “Like now, fuck me, Master Jack. Fuck your Puca slut! Put that cum of yours where it belongs—inside my wet hot needy pussy!”

I came, and I felt her spasm around me. The moans from the bed told me that Cindy had managed to match her pace to mine, and I was again left with the sense of having fucked both women together, using the Sin Demon as a tool.

She turned her multicolored head around and winked at me. I didn’t know for certain that it had been in response to the Lust the thought had generated in me, but the way she wiggled her pert little butt at me spoke volumes about her understanding.

At Rose’s request, I kept her in her bindings for round two, but eventually Zarina requested a break, and I finished pumping my second load into the Puca’s cunt with my hands wrapped around her wrists as I held myself above her. The taste of her black cupid’s bow lips as she came around my spasming cock was deliciously refreshing and tasted of something like mint—herbal, but not unpleasantly so.

The fact that I got to collapse onto the bed between her and Aubrette, and then cuddle the two sweaty Fae to either side of me was a treat worthy of a king. I fell asleep with my head on the pillows, and a woman’s head on each shoulder as they pressed themselves to my sides.

* * *

The next morning saw my household begin to return to about as close to normality as I’d ever seen.

It started with French toast and coffee from Aubrette.

I’d asked the Sidhe woman not too long after she arrived how she felt about using the power of her noble mantle to provide free food. She’d laughed and told me, “Most of my peers weren’t willing to ‘lower’ themselves to eating conjured food. The tools and equipment I conjured were too convenient to ignore, but the thought of settling for something magical when they had a whole staff ready to cook for them at their whim, well- Let’s just say that it’s a refreshing change of pace for me. Perhaps some day after a few decades I’ll tire of it, but I suspect that by then, your circumstances will have changed.”

The look on her face as she passed out plate after plate of food as people woke up and wandered through the room was decidedly content, so it didn’t seem like that day would arrive soon.

Across the room, having already finished their breakfast and gotten deep into conversation were Zarina, Rose and Sara. The wizard was in the midst of explaining to her new apprentice some of the ways that the origins of magic could impact how effectively it could accomplish a task, while the Puca listened and occasionally asked about a specific example. Her most recent was about the difference between the Glamour-fueled ritual I sometimes used on Sara, compared to the reflected Arcana that influenced Zarina herself.

While I’d put some effort into paying attention to the lessons Sara had been receiving, I’d missed many of them, and the gaps that created in my knowledge meant it was challenging for me to fully follow along. What I managed to put together was that while the two magical effects were similar from the outside, the Arcana version had to work substantially harder to achieve what was basically the same effect. Both the spell and the ritual tried to convince someone to do what the caster wanted, but all the Fae ritual really needed to do was tweak the part of the mind that rewarded behavior, and the Glamour basically did the rest. Most of the ritual was apparently just adding the guardrails that limited how and where the Fae magic worked.

Zarina’s spell, in contrast, needed to weave together hundreds of tiny tweaks to the subject’s mind. It altered their perceptions and their preferences in myriad subtle ways.

They both ultimately convinced their target that the caster was someone whose opinion was important, but while the former did it by flooding them with magic that held the right inherent associations, the latter essentially tweaked the target’s mind bit by bit to convince them that the caster was not only someone they trusted, but also created subtle connections going back in their perception of history to make them feel like an old and trusted friend—or lover.

That multitude of connections and changes were what led Zarina’s spell to be so vastly complicated to remove. Each and every one of the connections would remain in place until the magic faded on its own, and if they were to be severed it would need to be accomplished all at once.

In the normal course of the wizard using the spell—what would have happened to me, if I hadn’t been protected—the effect got weaker as it was about to end, then it just kind of fizzled out and faded away.

When she’d cast it on me, though, it had apparently gotten tangled up not only with a Fae ritual I’d performed not long after Aubrette had arrived, but also with Zarina’s own magic. The result was some kind of self-perpetuating loop, and while she still believed it would end itself eventually, it was somehow siphoning magic from somewhere to reinforce itself and had already lasted far, far beyond its original planned duration.

To make matters worse, if she tried to sever the threads of the magic but failed to catch even one, it could result in the spell remaining but with an uneven distribution. Zarina had no idea how that would actually affect her mind, except that she suspected it would ‘probably be very, very bad.’

The conversation gave a lot of context for why the wizard hadn’t yet managed to safely dispel the effect. And also why Amari hadn’t tried to do so himself when he briefly visited to check on his granddaughter.

In the meantime, Zarina had started a comprehensive study of her original spell to determine the exact nature of how and why it worked, and the point at which I fully lost the thread of the conversation was when she started to break that down. To my surprise, Sara was actually able to follow along, but it didn’t take long before Rose lost interest and wandered over to the kitchen to sit down with Cindy and myself.

Not long after that, Tzila wandered in from the other apartment.

The Jinn’s muscular torso was covered by a long t-shirt, but from the expression on her face I wasn’t actually sure if she had realized that she hadn’t bothered with pants. The way that the soft white cotton clung to and highlighted the curves of full breasts told me that a bra was out of the question, but it stretched just barely far enough down her well toned thighs to conceal her sex.

Her eyes were unfocused as she padded lightly into the kitchen, as though she wasn’t truly aware of her surroundings, and she poured herself a cup of coffee and took a plate of French toast from Aubrette without meeting the eyes of anyone in the room.

As I studied her distracted expression, though, she didn’t appear to actually be upset about anything. She managed a brief smile of gratitude when the Sidhe handed her food, and there were no subtle glares of anger or displays of obvious tolerance about her. Instead, the way she all but stared through the walls of my apartment told me that the Jinn was sincerely deep in thought.

She sipped at her unsweetened coffee as she slowly wheeled around and headed back towards the other apartment without having said a word.

My eyes watched the way her upper thighs flexed as she walked away, and I caught just a hint of the tightly muscled globes of her ass on each stride.

Cindy’s hand on my thigh told me that the Sin Demon was fully aware of what the sight was doing to me, but it also helped pull me back to the moment. I squeezed her hand, then gently removed it from my lap so I could get on with the rest of my morning.

A couple hours past noon—as close to twenty-four hours after my visit yesterday as I could manage—I lifted my arm to knock at Tzila’s bedroom door.

I hesitated with my knuckles frozen a few inches from the wood.

When I’d approached the Jinn the day before, I had come to her from a place of desperation. Cindy’s suggestion was outlandish, but it was the only plan I’d had, so I’d just kind of gone with it. Now, though, it occurred to me that depending on the answer Tzila gave me, the course of my life was likely to be altered forever. Whether that meant that I would have an ancient Jinn princess—even if she was insistent that the title somehow didn’t apply—in my life, or that I was going to have to find a way to responsibly give up her ring, either possibility had long-lasting implications.

I took a slow, deep breath.

In the end, I realized, I would be just as happy with either answer that she might give. If Tzila admitted that Cindy was right, and that she would ultimately be happiest if she was forced to work her way through her inner conflict, it would mean she would remain a part of my life.

Despite everything, I liked the Jinn. It was a little hard to wrap my mind around that fact, because the start we’d gotten had been prickly at best, but she was smart, and a fantastic storyteller, and I found the zeal with which she challenged anything to which she disagreed surprisingly refreshing.

On the other hand, if she told me that the Sin Demon’s assessment was wrong, I’d know that in the end we’d both be happiest if she went her own way. It would mean I no longer had to shoulder the responsibility of housing someone who didn’t want to be a part of my life.

I rapped at the door twice, then lowered my hand and waited.

It only took a moment for Tzila to respond, and when she did her voice was quiet, firm, and clear. “Enter.”

A sense of mild mild déjà vu hit me, but I fought through it and opened the door.

Unlike yesterday, when I looked inside, Tzila wasn’t seated on the edge of the bed. Instead, she sat cross-legged in the middle of the floor, her lap covered with a thin wool blanket. When I stepped inside and closed the door behind me, the Jinn’s head turned towards me and she raised her glowing eyes to meet mine.

There was clear conflict in her expression, but resolve too. What was missing was the look of torment which had haunted her for the week or so I’d known her. It had been replaced by- something. It might have been desire, or longing, or hope, but it was a tenuous thing that threatened to vanish like a soap bubble in the sun.

I found my lips curled in a reassuring smile as I looked down on her, and when I reflexively checked my gift, the future that greeted me was a broad field of rich blue, with barely a hint of discordant orange at the outside edges.

Somehow, everything was going to work out. I felt an unrealized tension melt from my shoulders.

She smiled up at me in return. Her soft pink lips might not have split into a broad and unreserved grin, but the expression she gave touched her metallic eyes and lacked the sense of near-hostility that had tainted so many of our early interactions.

“You have come for your answer.”

Tzila’s voice was airy and still higher pitched than I expected, even after weeks of hearing it. It wasn’t that it was actually particularly high, but given her height and frame I always anticipated the ring-bound woman to sound somehow masculine and throaty. A part of me expected her voice to resonate like Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel. Perhaps because of the film we had just watched the night before, the contrast between expectation and reality rang out more clearly than ever. Suddenly I realized that she sounded more like Nicole Kidman with a soft but precise accent I could only ever place as vaguely Arabic.

I did my best to shake off the thought and focus on the conversation at hand. “I have.”

The next few moments passed in silence as we studied each other’s faces. She shared the same knowledge as me—the answer she gave would shape her future, but in her case it was vastly more significant. Cindy’s plan was designed to force the Jinn to give up some of the convictions with which she’d been raised by prying them loose to reveal her deeper nature. Even if the time she spent with me was only a fraction of her effectively immortal life, whatever changes I wrought would stay with her for centuries.

The future remained a rich and welcome blue.

“Tzila,” When I spoke her name, the Jinn leaned forward slightly without rising, as though to better hear my words in the quiet of the room. “If I am able to help you somehow accept the submissive needs, desires, and impulses that you carry, such that you have those needs met instead of denying them completely, would you ultimately be happier for it?”

The eyes that stared up at me from the floor glowed with faint golden light that flickered every time her eyelids closed. She blinked up at me several times, then broke from her gaze from mine. Her head dropped and she stared into her lap for a few moments longer.

When she finally gave her answer, it was little more than a hushed whisper.

“Yes.”

* * *

Dinner that night was way more casual than the last two before it. We didn’t bother gathering around a table, but instead scattered around the living room with about a dozen Styrofoam containers. Aubrette didn’t conjure up a table, and while she provided takeout, it was in the form of several containers of street tacos and a cooler full of ice and beers.

My plan was to watch the next film in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but rather than eating while we started The Two Towers, we sat around the living room sharing our perspectives on the first movie. Tzila had wandered off as soon as we finished watching The Fellowship, and my attention had been on my plans for Rose and Aubrette, so we hadn’t really discussed it the night before.

When we did so now, I found the variety of takes on it utterly fascinating. Aubrette felt very strongly that the elves were obviously intended to represent Sidhe, and spent about ten minutes ignoring her tacos in favor of an impassioned explanation of her theory that Tolkien’s elves were the result of generations of oral history distorting tales of encounters with her people.

Cindy—rather quietly, as though she wished to avoid attention—asked Zarina if the wizard knew of any magic that could craft something similar to the One Ring.

Fortunately I managed to overhear her and shot that down quick. I wasn’t sure if Zarina knew of any magic like that, and even if she did, she was smart enough to know better than to put it in the hands of the Sin Demon, but I saw no reason to let the terrifying little blonde even dwell on the topic. She was bad enough as she was.

The cooler gradually grew more empty, but no one drank heavily enough to get more than lightly tipsy, and the mood stayed warm and comfortable.

When we finally gathered around the TV to watch the second film, we ran low on seating. Aubrette and Rose took the two chairs, Sara and Zarina snuggled up on either side of me on the couch, which left Cindy and Tzila on their feet.

Fortunately, I had planned for this. As everyone else shifted around and got comfortable, I asked the two of them to stand in front of me. Cindy all but leapt to obey. While Tzila joined her promptly, the Jinn’s movements were slightly more hesitant, and I had to suppress an uncomfortable feeling that crept over me.

I might’ve been willing to try the Sin Demon’s plan to help Tzila work through her conflict, but ordering two women to stand in front of me as though in audience before a king invoked an uncomfortably authoritarian vibe that—despite the fact that Aubrette called me ‘my Lord’ frequently—I wasn’t actually trying to foster.

My consolation was the ‘yes’ that Tzila had given earlier in the day. She might have been forced to obey me by the magic of the ring, but I was doing my best to ensure that the only commands I gave her were ones she had agreed to.

I glanced around as the two women waited on me and did my best to remind myself that literally everyone here was a voluntary participant. Zarina and Rose might have been edge cases, but the wizard’s obvious enthusiasm helped to ease my conscience, as did the Puca’s confession when I questioned her last night.

When my eyes returned to the two women in front of me, I couldn’t help but compare them physically. The differences between the two in height and build were drastic, with exactly a foot of height and about sixty pounds of curves and muscle separating them. Where Cindy was slender and waifish, Tzila had packed some serious muscle onto her frame. It did nothing to detract from her femininity, though, and my eyes were drawn to the swell of her breasts and the curve of her hips beneath the thin cotton that covered them.

The fact that I could easily make out the outline of the golden barbells that pierced her nipples through the fabric where they strained against it was a further draw to my attention, and both the Sin Demon and the princess noticed where my eyes had lingered.

“Shirts off, both of you. Strip to the waist.”

The command was as casual as I could manage, and Cindy responded by whipping off her shirt in a single fluid motion. It left her in a pair of skin-tight khaki shorts that hugged her narrow hips, and revealed the stiff nubs of her nipples atop modest breasts that still jiggled quite enticingly in the dim light that flooded in front the kitchen. To complete the look, she’d donned a pair of striped black and purple socks which covered her pale legs to above her knees, but which left most of her creamy thighs exposed.

When she saw me looking, Cindy shook her shoulders to shake her tits a little, then dropped her arms to her sides and stood more or less at attention with an eager smile on her glossy purple lips.

Beside her, Tzila’s motions were far more methodical as she stripped off her t-shirt. Rather than flinging the garment into the corner as Cindy had, the Jinn pulled it over her head and folded it neatly in her hands, then set it down on the carpet at her feet. She made no move to cover her teardrop breasts when they emerged, and after a quick glance to her right she mirrored the demon and fell into a position of attention with her arms at her side.

I let my eyes flicker back and forth between the two women as I studied them again. The Sin Demon’s nipples were tight little crinkled points on her chest, which I knew was because her body remained in a state of nigh-constant arousal that she’d made extremely clear I was welcome to enjoy.

The fact that the tips of Tzila’s breasts were drawn just as tight might also have been the result of arousal, but I couldn’t rule out the comparative cool of the apartment air, or the fact that they were pierced with golden metal bars as possible causes. I had to resist the urge to ask. It wasn’t the point of my command, and I had more in mind than my own amusement. There was a specific point to this order, and I intended to make it to the conflicted Jinn.

My eyes lingered at the simple cotton pants she wore, and, unbidden, I couldn’t help but picture her in gauzy harem pants instead. I shook my head to dispel the thought before it could fully take hold, and instead pointed down in front of my feet. Atop the carpet there I’d stacked a couple pillows, snagged from the nearest bedroom.

Before I could actually voice the order, both Tzila and Cindy stepped forward and knelt on them. The heady rush of power that flowed over me threatened to break my concentration and I had to struggle to remind myself to stick to the plan. Instead, I motioned Cindy forward. She turned around as she approached and let her back hit the couch, then snuggled up atop the pillow until her side was pressed against my left leg.

While the Sin Demon snuggled up, Tzila moved with deliberate grace as she lowered herself to kneel atop the pillow. The way she bowed her head and left her hands at her side made it obvious that she expected me to give her further orders, but what I could see of her expression lacked that stiffness and anxiety that I had come to associate with her body language. Instead, she appeared strangely relaxed—apart from the crinkled nubs of her nipples, that I was increasingly convinced had nothing to do with the temperature.

“Tzila.” When I spoke the Jinn’s name, she raised her head and met my eyes. Her expression remained regally calm and smooth, and it occurred to me that it genuinely wasn’t nudity that had been bothering the Jinn—it was the obvious fact of my authority over her thanks to the ring I wore. Even when I wasn’t exerting any power over her, every time she’d seen me casually engaged in enthusiastic sex with Cindy—or Aubrette, Rose, Zarina, or Sara—it had reminded Tzila that I could have, without so much as a moment’s notice, had her take their place.

“I have some orders for you for the rest of the evening.” I gestured down at her t-shirt where she’d dropped it on the carpet. “You may, at any point you choose, retrieve your shirt and put it on. You can then choose and claim any seat you like in the living room, even if it’s already occupied.”

Her brow furrowed slightly as she listened to me speak, but she made no attempt to interrupt me as I continued, “Before you do so, though, you need to do something. You need to address Cindy and, as honestly as you are able, tell her that the fact that she’s topless and kneeling at my feet means that you think it lowers her value. Or, if you can’t do that, you need to explain to her what it is about her that means she should kneel at my feet while you should not.”

The Jinn’s glowing eyes broke from my face as she turned them at the topless demon cuddled up in front of the couch. When she didn’t respond verbally, I added, “You don’t need to tell her to stop doing what she’s doing, and you don’t owe the person whose seat you claim any explanation. All you have to do first is get up, you don’t even need to tell whoever’s seat you request why you want to sit there—hell, you can tell me to get up, and I’ll cede the couch to you and find somewhere else. You just need to be able to honestly tell Cindy that you think that kneeling with her tits out—specifically because I told her to—makes her less worthy as a person. If you can’t do that, but you can tell her that having your tits out because I told you to makes you a less worthy person instead, that’s fine too.”

Tzila’s mouth opened.

Then it closed again, and she stared up at me, unmoving.

I finished with, “Doesn’t have to be now, either—any time you want. Until then, though, you’re going to keep your tits out while you sit at my feet and watch the movie.”

As I leaned back, I stretched my arms out wide to either side. Rose hit play, Sara and Zarina snuggled up, and as the opening logos started to flash up on screen, six sets of eyes turned towards them.

Tzila took a little longer to get in position, but a few moments later she rested her bare back against the couch. Her shoulder wasn’t quite pressed against my knee, but she was close enough that I could feel the heat that radiated off her.

Gandalf and the Balrog battled in a flashback on screen, and all seven of us began to lose ourselves in the story.

As the film went on, I saw Tzila turn her head to look at Cindy more than once. The little Sin Demon was paying close attention to the movie, and had given no sign that she was willing to release her hold on my leg while she did so. Neither of the women at my feet spoke, even when I again asked Aubrette to hand out popcorn to everyone.

The movie ended, and Cindy immediately demanded that we start the next film in the trilogy. I turned her down, since I’d been unable to move the leg she’d held for the entire time and it had started to cramp up, but the fact that she’d gotten that invested brought a smile to my lips.

The Two Towers has a long runtime, and it was late enough that when the credits started to roll, heading directly to bed wasn’t out of the question. Sara took her leave and headed back to her own apartment, Zarina broke out a book for some late night reading, and Rose wandered into the other apartment. The rest of us—Aubrette, Cindy, Tzila and myself—sat around talking through what we all thought of the movie.

Aubrette—naturally—found herself wrapped up in the forbidden romance of Aragorn and Arwen, Cindy felt that they had spent too much time not following the artifact of power and wished they had focused more on that. Tzila, meanwhile, was far more interested in the political machinations and situation that had led to Boromir’s position in the narrative. She turned to me to ask, “Is there writing that might help me better understand the story?”

My eyes gleamed. “Follow me.”

The Jinn rose from the floor to follow as I walked to my bookshelf. Compared to Zarina’s stacks and stacks of ancient tomes, my collection was tiny, but they were some of the only possessions I’d been able to cart from one cheap apartment to another for the last several years, and they had brought me much entertainment and satisfaction over the years. I scanned my eyes across the well-worn spines of mostly trade paperbacks until I found the cracked copy of The Fellowship of the Ring that had been a present from one of my closest friends—Chris—in high school.

I pulled it from the shelf and handed it to her.

“Let me know when you finish that one and I’ve got the next two as well. I also have a copy of the Silmarillion that I’ve never even come close to finishing, but if you really want to know about Tolkien’s world, it’s got a lot more than the rest.”

I was greeted with a blaze of excitement as Tzila’s eyes gleamed brightly, and she all but snatched the book from my hands. Then she seemed to realize what she’d done. She drew herself to her full height and met my gaze for a moment, then offered a surprisingly genuine smile.

“Thank you, Jack. I will let you know when I finish this one.”

She all but ran from the room, but I got the feeling it had more to do with her desire to get to reading than any need to flee me, so I wasn’t terribly offended by her sudden departure.

She left behind her, still on the middle of the living room floor, the shirt she’d removed at my command. The Jinn hadn’t so much as broached the topic all night. I wasn’t sure if that meant that she couldn’t think of what to say to Cindy to meet my requirements, or if she’d simply chosen not to, but either way I took it as a good sign for things to come.