“Ugh, no more explaining!” Aris protested. “Can’t we cover this some more tomorrow?”

“Sure,” Kelsey said, clearing the table of the dangerous devices and materials she had been training them on. “Just remember, there will be a test on this.”

Anton smiled. He’d always been the more studious one, and something about the things he had just learned seemed to call out to his Class. Setting off explosives felt like something an Adventurer was meant to do.

“Let’s talk about something lighter,” he suggested.

“No, wait, there's something we need to talk about,” Aris replied. “Kelsey, what did you think you were doing, poisoning that girl?”

“You threatened Zaphar with spiders as well,” Anton recalled. “You can’t do that!”

“Oh? Have I been bad?” Kelsey asked archly. “You’ll have to punish me, then.”

Anton narrowed his eyes. He knew what game Kelsey was playing, she called it “Good Cop, Bad Girl”.

“If you’ve been acting out, just so we’d spank you…” he trailed off, trying to think of how to end the statement. They’d not punish her?

“It’s not like that,” Kelsey said quickly, dropping her affectation. “You guys, you live in a small community. Everyone depends on each other. Here, it’s a dog-eat-dog world, and we’re in the worst part of it. You’ve got to show these guys that you’re someone to be afraid of.”

“Dogs don’t eat dogs,” Aris protested, somewhat naively.

“Not in Kirido,” Kelsey corrected her. “They don’t get hungry enough. Here, it’s so bad that everyone is a dog, scrambling to survive and desperate enough to do terrible things.”

The pair looked at Kelsey doubtfully. She grinned back at them. “On the other hand, if it’s got you all upset, I really could use a good spanking.”

Anton and Aris looked at each other. He shrugged.

“Fine,” Aris said. “But get the bathtub out, Anton needs to wash first.”

Kelsey clapped her hands together excitedly and got to work. Aris had had a chance to use the bathhouse earlier, but Anton couldn’t take Kelsey into the male baths. Not that she needed to bathe. Her skin didn’t get greasy, her sweat was just clean water, and dirt was just another item that she could disappear into her Storage.

“How did you find the baths, anyway?” Kelsey asked as she filled up the large tub with hot water.”

“It was a bit weird,” Aris said. “I was a little worried that someone would think I was a slave, but most of the women using them were staff.”

Kelsey stepped back from the steaming tub, waiting expectantly.

“Right,” Aris said. “Clothes off, and get the suit out.”

Kelsey grinned, disappearing her clothes in an instant. Then she handed a bundle of leather straps to Aris. Anton started undressing the slow way as he looked at the display in front of him.

Kelsey could have caused the “suit” to appear on her as easily as she disappeared her clothes, but putting it on was part of the ritual. Made of something that Kelsey called synthetic, it was less a garment and more a collection of straps attached to each other.

Putting it on was a complex task. Aris had done it before, but she still needed some guidance from Kelsey. Once it was done, Aris started tightening the straps that connected it all together. Kelsey’s arms were pulled behind her back, and she was forced into a submissive kneeling position.

Leaving her behind on the floor, Aris walked over to Anton, sitting in his bath. This part, Aris enjoyed. She wasn’t much into this game, as either a submissive or a dominator. She had said that she could sort of see the attraction but didn’t really feel it. That was about where Anton stood, though he did feel a certain frisson when taking the dominant role.

Suliel was heavily into it, at least when it came to what Kelsey called “beginner-level” play. The first time she’d seen the suit, she’d made a high-pitched keening noise, until Kelsey promised to make her one.

What Aris enjoyed was showing off her body to her man, and she was doing it now. Anton felt himself start to grow at the sight, as she slowly stripped out of her clothes and approached him.

“This is what good girls get to do,” she said over her shoulder. Then she knelt down and kissed him.

They took their time. They hadn’t had much opportunity for intimacy on the boat, and now they could make up for it. When they finally broke the kiss, Aris started washing the salt of Anton’s skin, while he caressed her bountiful breasts. She didn’t get in the bath, but she got plenty of water on her. It ran down her skin from his hands, dripping on the waxed wooden floor.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

This was about getting clean, not sex, but Aris made sure to tease his member, just a little, as she ran her hands all over his body. There were giggles, groans and more kisses. Throughout it all, Kelsey watched, bound and quietly whimpering.

When he was done, Anton stood up and stepped over to her, towelling himself off. Kelsey’s eyes stayed fixed on his erection. Her intent expression was just as much of a turn-on as Aris’s warm, still wet body, pressed into his side.

“You want this?” he asked.

She nodded eagerly. “Yes, please, master,” she said. Even knowing that she was acting, Anton was shocked by the change in her demeanour.

He held it close to her face, close enough for her to smell it. He expected her to make a lunge for it, but instead, she opened her mouth and started panting. Feeling her warm breath on the tip of his member he was tempted to let her start sucking it. But…

“No,” he told her. “You’re being punished.”

“No! Please master!” she wailed, but he ignored her. He pushed Aris over towards the bed, and she lay back, her legs spread.

“You’ve been a good girl, haven’t you” he asked.

“Oh, yes, reward me, please.” Aris managed to say the lines without giggling, but she wasn’t much of an actor. It didn’t matter though. Anton was eager to end his period of enforced abstinence, and his wife was ready and willing to sate him.

The cries she made as he plunged into her weren’t faked, but they were enhanced a little for Kelsey’s benefit. She was normally a little quieter. Anton found that her gasps of enjoyment were spurring him on to greater efforts.

Throughout it all, as the fervour of their lovemaking increased, Kelsey was left on the floor. “I’m sorry I was bad, master!” she called out. “Please punish me!”

Anton hadn’t intended to leave her there the whole time, but he found himself quite unable to tear himself away from Aris until he finished. That round, anyway.

Lifting himself off her flushed and sweating body, he stepped behind Kelsey’s still kneeling form. “This is your punishment,” he told her. “No sex for you.”

“Please, master, punish me properly!” Kelsey begged.

“Oh?” he asked. He bent and picked her up. The “suit” had a number of attached loops in strategic locations that made for convenient handles. Despite her strength, Kelsey didn’t weigh more than a small woman, and he easily hefted her and carried her over the bed.

“What’s the safeword,” he asked.

“It’s pickle,” she told him. He couldn’t see, but he knew she was rolling her eyes. She hadn’t even told them about safewords until Suliel wanted a turn, and had always been dismissive about them being needed for her.

“Don’t be like that,” he told her. “Dying would be considerably more than an inconvenience if it left you halfway around the world from me.”

He placed her on the bed, face down over Aris. He released her arms so she could support herself, but her legs were still kept bent. Her ass was raised into the air, her sex exposed. Anton ran his finger along it. As he expected, it was dripping wet.

Kelsey moaned at his touch, and Anton felt himself stir. Not for the first time, he admired the contrast of Aris’s warm brown skin against Kelsey’s cool paleness.

“Do you deserve to be pushed, Kelsey?” he asked.

“Yes! I’ve been bad!” Kelsey replied.

“All right then,” Anton said and brought his palm down on her ass as hard as he could. The crack of his hand against her skin was like a gunshot. Kelsey yowled, and he did it again.

“Harder!” she screamed. But Anton was hard again, so he shoved himself inside her instead.

It took a lot to hurt Kelsey. The gap between their strengths had closed, but she was still stronger than him. Tougher, too, but his Stoneskin made the difference. Without it, his slap would hurt him more than it hurt her.

Even so, he had to go all out before she felt it. As long as he wasn’t using tools. Kelsey had suggested whips, studded paddles and even knives, but he had to draw a line. It wasn’t that Kelsey didn’t know her limits. She had no limits. Even death was just another sensation that she was eager to try.

Since he was unwilling to provide her with that sensation, she had to settle for sex as rough as he was willing to grant. He slammed himself into her, alternating thrusts with slaps to her pale butt. He pulled on her hair, and Aris bit on her nipples. She screamed in release and begged for more.

“Yes! Yes! I’m— wait!” she yelled.

Anton had pulled out of her at the critical moment and plunged into Aris instead. She had recovered from the first round and had been getting thoroughly turned on by the intense lovemaking occurring above her.

Kelsey gasped in outrage but found herself being pulled down for a kiss by Aris. Anton slapped Kelsey's ass again but kept plunging into Aris’s moist heat. Then he switched again, driving Kelsey into a frenzy.

Anton lost track of how long he’d been going for. He was pushing his enhanced stamina to the limit, he thought, as Kelsey finally came, screaming with delight. He switched back to Aris as Kelsey shuddered, squeezed between their thrusting bodies.

He finally exploded in Aris, setting her off again. With the release of his orgasm, he came back to himself, atop two naked bodies. Kelsey disappeared her bonds and rolled to the side. Anton burrowed in between them and relaxed in the afterglow.

Aris was the first one to drop off to sleep, exhausted. Anton was tired and sated, but he stayed awake for a little longer. Kelsey, of course, wouldn’t be sleeping.

“Satisfied?” he asked her.

“It was pretty good,” she said smugly. “You really went for it, this time.”

“It seemed… a little different,” he told her. “Like you weren’t just after sensation.”

“You could tell? How embarrassing,” Kelsey said. She tried to look away, but he held on to her gaze.

“What is it?” he pressed.

“I suppose… I actually felt a little guilty this time.”

“Over the spiders? That’s great!”

“Not over the stupid spiders,” Kelsey retorted indignantly. “Those thieves deserved everything they got. It was for giving up… on the dungeon.”

“Ah. Did it help?”

“Well, it was a lot of fun,” Kelsey hedged. “But… no. Even pain doesn’t really… touch me when it comes from this body. It helped me forget, but not for very long.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s my fault I can’t come up with a solution. It’s just that… I’ve never had to give up before.”

“Never?”

“I’ve lived a long life, down in that hole. I’ve had setbacks and failures, and I’ve gone down any number of dead ends that I had to give up on. But I always found a way to get what I needed.”

“Until now.”

“Yeah.” Kelsey shivered in his arms. “That dungeon has never really lived, and now it’s going to die.”

“Don’t give up, then.” Anton wasn’t sure why those words came out.

“As simple as that?”

“It seems a little silly telling you this,” Anton said, “but that’s part of the advice they give at the guild. If you give up, the Dungeon will kill you. Your only chance is to keep going, even if you don’t see a way forward.”

“You mean me.” Kelsey snickered. “I will kill you, if you give up.”

“I said it sounded silly,” Anton said.

“No, it’s good advice… for delvers. Maybe for me as well. That might be… what I needed to hear.”

She wiggled out from under him.

“Get some sleep, Anton, I’ll keep watch.”