‘Information retrieval’, he had called it, naively thinking it would be self-explanatory, but then Toog remembered the Queen’s designations and that ‘information retrieval’ had been used in lieu of ‘torturer’ and it had spiralled in all the wrong directions from there. It had taken hours of ridiculous arguing back and forth, but Arne now assumed that maybe everyone now agreed on what kind of information needed to be retrieved and how that was going to happen.

He knocked at the door to the house where the orgy was held and was surprised when a tall, well-dressed man opened. He looked to be in his early thirties; slender, with dark hair and eyes, and a trim beard.

“Yes?” he asked, more curious than anything else.

“Ehm…” Arne tried not to laugh at the absurdity. “I was here yesterday,” he settled for.

“Ohh,” the man said, knowingly. “My wife told me the Family had a new addition. Come in, please.” He stepped aside, and Arne entered, but when the door closed behind him, the man gently reached out and put his hands on Arne's face, drawing him closer for a very warm, inviting kiss. “Welcome, Brother,” he finally said, post kiss, smiling. Then he laughed at Arne's expression.

“Not the… welcome I expected from…” Arne said hesitantly, “the husband of a woman I…”

“Don’t be absurd, the joyful union is exactly that. It’s not a tool for judging or jealousy.” He led Arne into the house. “Kiffa,” he called. “We have a guest.”

When the woman who had officiated the orgy showed up, her face lit up in a bright smile. “How wonderful! What can I do for you?”

“I would like to speak with you,” Arne said. “About the Family.”

“Of course,” she said and both her and her husband led him into the room where the orgy had taken place.

Arne kept expecting some sort of hint of their readiness to attack, or any kind of hostility, but they all just took a seat and the couple looked expectantly at him.

“I wasn’t completely honest with you yesterday,” Arne began.

“Oh?” the woman looked puzzled. “About what?”

“I already knew of the Family before we met yesterday. I’m actually here with an Officiant from the city. She was hoping you would find me so I could observe the joyful union. I’m sorry to have deceived you like this, but after all that nasty business with the house coming under attack in Arabesk,” he explained, noting that Kiffa looked blankly at him, “extra attention is being paid to make sure everything is well in the smaller communities, too,” he lied smoothly, pleased at the open and honest expressions on their faces.

“Well, you saw that everything is as it should be,” the husband said, not aggressively but not a hint of a question in the statement either.

“I did.” Arne smiled at them. “Very much so. And that is what I reported to the Officiant. She bid me ask to be invited into your Family at your convenience. She would be honoured to follow your lead at the ritual of the joyful union if you will permit it.”

The woman gasped in delight and the couple looked at each other, beaming. “Of course, we would be honoured!” she said happily.

“That is wonderful,” Arne smiled happily back at both of them. “When will be convenient for you?”

o-0-o

“Just… don’t be weird,” Arne said in a whisper before knocking at the door.

“We’re going to yet another orgy, Arne. Don’t be weird is not a valid sentence,” Toog whispered calmly seconds before the door opened. In the entrance hall, he saw happy, naked people in the fountain getting ready. The smiling Kiffa stepped aside to allow Dia to enter and bowed her head respectfully as Dia stepped in, cat mask firmly in place.

Arne caught himself being genuinely impressed at the regal calm Dia held herself with in the very revealing dress Toog had managed to roll her into, made out of a white bedsheet torn to rather narrow strips. The purple collar embroidery was missing, but hopefully nobody would point it out since there was only so much fabric that could have contained embroidery, and none could be described as a collar.

…Priest impersonator assistant had not been the at the top of his list of things he expected to do.

“This is Kitty, the Officiant.” Arne said in a formal tone, hoping the ridiculous name would piss her off. “She has spent the entire day in meditation for the joyous union and would love to follow you so she might see the ritual bowl before we begin, if you will allow it.”

“Of course,” Kiffa beamed. “Please, Kitty, follow me.”

Dia left with their hostess and Arne and Toog looked at each other.

“Better hurry to the giggle-grope,” Toog said and calmly walked towards the fountain.

Arne sucked in his breath. Finally! He hadn’t even thought about it, but in such a small crowd, Toog would be naked and right next to him. There was no way he was going to miss it. There was no way Toog would be elsewhere in a crowd of a hundred horny lunatics.

Toog smiled at everyone bathing in the fountain and smearing themselves with laurel oil rub and then calmly walked past and sat down on a bench past the fountain near the wall. Then Toog retrieved a large expensive looking notebook from a bag, found a silver stylus in a pocket and began to draw. Fully clothed.

“Gods fucking damn it…” Arne muttered softly under his breath. And then tensed when he felt someone walk up behind him and gentle hands landed on his shoulders.

“Don’t be so stressed, Brother,” Kiffa’s husband whispered in his ear, breath warm on his skin. “You brought the Officiant and her Watcher,” he nodded over to Toog at the other end of the room. “I can see you take your responsibilities very seriously, but you are here for a joyful union. You have done your duty. You can relax now.”

Arne could hear the smile in the other man’s voice and was tempted to simply lean back against him.

“Come here,” the husband smiled near Arne's throat and gently pushed him towards the fountain while putting his arms under Arne's to unclasp the broad silk and leather belt around his waist.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Arne couldn’t keep a laugh back. “You are certainly persistent. You are aware I’m strictly speaking at work, right?” he asked and tilted his head so they could look at each other.

“You are aware you are strictly speaking a guest in my house? I have a rule against wasting a good attraction.”

Why not… Arne thought. It wasn’t like he was going to a magically compelled tentacle orgy to be prudish, and the other orgies had doubtlessly ended up with …many reasons for the funny taste in his mouth afterwards.

“Well,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to be a bad guest.”

o-0-o

Dia repeated the words Kiffa said. The two women were kneeling by the large bowl surrounded by five lamps in elegant iron holders driven into the floor. They were holding hands above the water, and Dia’s words were like a shadow of the priestess’, following just a moment after hers.

Arne struggled to stay aware, knowing the tentacle was coming and the bloodletting was going to happen, but that tongue was awfully distracting, and his hands were just itching to explore, and whatever Dia and the priestess were doing, it was certainly working, and …Toog was probably here with… somewhere… a notebook and would… notes… fine… pleasure…

o-0-o

Arne halfway came to, sweaty and hot, warm bodies around him still sating their lust, but something had… changed? A hot kiss, and he had to concentrate, and that was really not easy with hands touching…

He slowly pushed himself into a sitting position and looked towards the tentacle bowl. He shook his head. Something was amiss, like a pulse in the air that seemed to vibrate all wrong and made his hair stand on end like just before a thunderstorm.

Around him, the other participants seemed to slow their frantic touches as if they felt the strange wrongness too.

His gaze went to Dia. She still held Kiffa the priestess’ hands, but the grip looked fierce and claw-like. The priestess wore no mask, and her eyes were rolled into the back of her head as she sat there, her lips moving in a silent chant.

He couldn’t see Dia's eyes under the cat mask but the way she held herself seemed strained and unpleasant. And then he saw the ripples. The surface of the bowl rippled as if something had disturbed one side of it. Then from the other side, another ripple followed. Slowly, he untangled himself from whatever arms held him and got to his feet, looking down into the bowl. Six points along the rim of the bowl were rippling in a constant pulse, and then he saw the… Fingers?

Long, segmented, corpse white, tiny spikes running up them. They came from underneath the surface of the water, although he could see nothing at the bottom of the bowl. Like hideous dead fingers, they seemed to feel along the rim of the large washbowl. Then the outer joints of the creature curled over the edge for purchase and a white hairless fleshy spiderlike body with small double pincers running the entire length of its bulk, hauled itself out of the bowl.

Arne stood still and stared, and everywhere around him, people had fallen silent. And then the creature jumped. It easily found purchase on Dia's cat mast, covering her face and chest completely, and with awful dexterity, it skittered over her head and seemed to dig the tips of its legs into her scalp.

Dia screamed. But the priestess didn’t let go of her arms and the hideous creature skittered down the back of her neck, the weight of it seeming to force her head down.

Finally, the horror he felt loosened its grip on Arne, and he turned to run back to the fountain, pushing and elbowing those that had gotten up out of his way. He slid to a halt on the polished floor where his clothes were, cursing himself in his thoughts for being such an idiot and leaving his weapons behind. Unprofessional.

Unforgivable, he admonished himself as he sprinted back to the bowl a few moments later, elbowing past the other orgy participants who clearly thought fleeing was the right idea and now streamed shrieking and panicked out of the orgy room.

Dia still screamed. The white horror the size of the washbowl’s surface was on her back, but she was still held by the priestess. He didn’t know why Dia hadn’t already killed everyone in the room and why he had any lifeforce left in his body, but he ran towards the priestess, dagger in hand. She was clearly preventing Dia from moving, and he needed Dia's cooperation to fight the monstrous thing.

He was almost there. A quick grip on the woman’s head and he could slit her throat. And then something crashed into him with a scream, and he landed heavily next to the priestess, tangled on the floor with her husband, still naked and warm against Arne's skin. An admirable instinct for protection, but not smart in the long run.

Arne wrapped his legs around the man who was clearly not a brawler, easily got his hand free and stabbed the husband’s ribs repeatedly, until his screams faded, and he lay still. Arne kicked the corpse in his arms away, slipped in the blood when trying to get up, and saw that Toog was standing over the priestess’ slumped body. Arne turned towards Dia who now had her hands free but was still screaming incoherently and thrashing about while the white, spiderlike thing dug its finger-like legs into her face and shoulders to stay attached to her back. It sat there like a huge fleshy lump, wobbling and awful as fat veins seemed to paint themselves on the pale skin of the thing as it filled with blood like a tick.

Arne and Toog reached her at the same time.

“Hold still!” Toog screamed.

Dia still howled incoherently and trashed about, and Toog tried to grab her arms and subdue her as Arne slashed at the bulbous creature that had attached itself firmly to her.

The knife met almost no resistance; it was like cutting into a cake covered with a layer of thin honey-dough that broke easily under the edge of the weapon. Then the blade sank into the gloopy, pulsing interior.

And then Toog was suddenly there with a potted plant, bashing the wounded creature.

…Which released a flood of fluids as the fleshy sack of the creature punctured like a lanced boil.

The stench made Arne gag and he fought not to dry heave and collapse as he began pulling at the creature’s finger-like legs that had dug into Dia's skin. And then he saw the wounds forming on her skin. Bubbling and awful, as if her skin were boiling.

“Acid!” Toog screamed. “Fountain!”

Revolted and horrified, Arne tore the creature fully off Dia's back, not caring what damage he did to her, lifted her, and ran with her through the orgy room towards the fountain where he put her down.

Toog pulled her over to lie on her side and began pouring water over the wounds on her back. Dia barely moved now. Her screaming had stopped, and she just laid there, shaking, her face still hidden behind the cat mask.

“You do it!” Toog stated and Arne did as he was told, briefly seeing Toog run back into the orgy room. He bathed the wound on Dia's back and saw that it was a long series of sharp puncture wounds along the back of her neck and down on either side of the spine, probably made by the pincers that ran the length of the creature’s body. And everywhere the creature had sat, the skin was almost burned and corroded away, making one big open wound that oozed blood bubbling out of the flesh.

Dia suddenly gave a shuddering sob from beneath the mask. It sounded almost childlike and full of hurt and agony, and the vulnerability was both absurd and so unexpected that Arne took a step back and realised fully what had happened and where he was. The door to the street was open, all the orgy goers had fled, most naked, it seemed, because the stacks of clothes left behind at the fountain were still there. He crouched down and removed Dia's mask. Her eyes were closed tightly. The wounds on her back were raw and open.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled and reached out to pour water over the raw wound, hoping to wash away the last remnants of the corrosive agent the creature bled when he cut it.

Toog came back with the bag from earlier, this time bulging absurdly. “Get dressed, we should go.”

“Right…” Arne looked down himself. Yep, still naked. He searched through the pile of clothes and put his on quickly, and as he was pulling his boots on, he heard running footsteps from down the street.

“Shit,” he muttered.

“Shit,” Toog muttered too. “Dia can eat them, right? Just let me get out of the way first. See you at the tavern.” With that, Toog ran towards the door and out in the street, screaming, “Help, help, there’s a tentacle monster! There are only two survivors.”

Arne shook his head and drew a deep breath. He’d been to orgies that had gone better. Then he picked Dia up, supporting her as gently as he could without touching her back.

“Can you suck life out of people and give it to yourself?” he asked.

“Yes,” she whispered through clenched teeth.

“Good, because those footsteps mean citizens’ watch,” Arne said, as they made their way to the door.

“Get me out there!” was all Dia could manage.