11. MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

Eventually, Sam pulled back and said, “James, I want you to take me.”

The hunger in her eyes was infectious, and I was perfectly ready to leap into doing just that when a sharp jolt of concern jarred my senses. Beth had a patient but slightly concerned smile spreading on her face, and she was mentally begging me to pump my brakes. The smaller, younger woman was still entangled with Sam, their legs intertwined, and Beth brushed Sam's hair out of her face while her eyes remained locked with mine.

Sam saw the change in my expression and joined me in glancing at Beth, now concerned that something was wrong and, yet again, she would be denied.

Beth spoke softly, “Sorry, I just…” She trailed off and then looked directly at Sam. “You’ve never done this before, right? Like, you spent high school pining after this guy even though you couldn’t have him, and then you got stuck into work trying to forget everything, yeah? So you’ve never been with a guy before?”

Sam flushed with color and gave a flustered response, “Well, not exactly, no.”

An eyebrow rose on Beth’s face. I was curious about what she meant with that imprecise answer, but I certainly wasn’t going to push for clarification. If Beth wanted to, she could navigate this minefield.

“Sam, what does ‘not exactly’ mean?”

“Well, J’s gotten me off several times.” She said barely audibly, her face now matching her hair. “And I’ve used toys before. But I’ve never done it with a guy.”

Beth lifted herself up from the pillows to give me the same raised eyebrow, questioning what Sam meant by that.

I explained that I had done the same to Sam as I had to Zoey and Mallory during the initial roadside pitstop and then during our enchanting session. Sam added that when I had pushed my mana into her during the massage, she had been consumed by the most intense and overwhelming orgasm of her albeit limited experience. She then opened her mouth to say something else but swallowed her comments and blushed naively instead.

“So, your experience with boys is a couple of magically induced cums from J’s hands this week?”

Sam nodded, embarrassed by her lack of experience, and she started apologizing, “Yeah, that’s right. Sorry I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Beth fought hard to swallow a giggle at the insanity of that statement, and she shook her head, “Sam, first, don’t ever apologize for being you. I can feel through our connection that J actually really likes the idea that you’ll only ever know him. Second, I just wanted to be sure of that information because I figured you wouldn’t actually speak up if I didn’t ask. I’m not trying to pick on you; I’m actually really jealous. You get to skip the clueless teenage fumbling around in movie theaters and the back seats of an older sibling's car and jump right to the mind-blowing time J will give you. I really wish my first time had been in an actual bed with a guy I loved who cared about getting me off as well. Or at least one of those elements.”

Beth had gotten distracted, her thoughts wandering off to our first time together. I could surmise that she was telling Sam the truth, but not the entire truth. She wished she had her first time with me because that would imply that she wouldn’t have ever needed to use sex outside of a loving relationship for pragmatic reasons. Hell, even our first time together had been for similarly misguided presumptions. Beth offered a guilty smile in response to that shared thought before collecting herself and continuing.

“So, how do you want this, then? Do you want me to leave so you can do it alone with J? You only have your first time once. Since James is too nice of a guy to have simply ravished you last night, you get to tell us and make one of your fantasies a reality.”

Sam almost immediately answered, “I don’t know.”

Beth frowned and tilted her head, producing an impeccable visage that, even without our link, I could tell meant she thought she was being lied to.

“Don’t give me that bullshit, Sammie. I know you’re not so innocent as to never have thought about it. Did you imagine it would be on your wedding night or something like that? We could go get you a dress and have a ceremony if you want something specific. C’mon, spill, so we can make it wonderful and just what you wanted. How do you want this to happen?”

Sam shook her head, “No. I mean, yeah, sometimes the wedding night thought was in my mind. What I meant was that I didn’t really have a single fantasy. James winning one of his races at their big end-of-the-year meet, climbing out of the pool, dripping wet and all hot and trim in his suit, and taking me to the showers to celebrate was one. The two of us sneaking off during one of the school assemblies and defiling an empty classroom was a regular back then, too. Every time he talked to me at my locker, I silently wished he would grab my hand, pull me against him, and kiss me into next week.

“Recently, I imagined just having him show up out of the blue to ask me for coffee, and I say yes, and then he hands me a to-go cup that he brought me because he didn’t want to be distracted by anyone else and says he missed me. This week, I’ve been kinda dreaming about just being here, in this room. You’re a bit vocal, and I’ve spent every night imagining I was you laying in here with him making those noises.”

Beth offered her best precious moments impression, “That’s just so sweet; you are really obsessed with him, aren’t you?” What she didn’t say out loud made me bite my own tongue to stifle a snort of laughter: Beth imagined that if I hadn’t spontaneously become a dragon, Sam would’ve grown up to be a sexless crazy cat lady, but that wasn’t actually an issue since she was a witch. A horde of cats was perfectly fitting.

Sam simply nodded in response to the rhetorical question.

“So, do you want me to go? I could go whip up breakfast and then run the tub so the two of you can have a nice relaxing normal dating experience morning together afterward.” I could hear little doubts creeping into Beth’s mind, reminding her that she didn’t actually know what one of those 'normal' mornings was.

Instead of answering, Sam posed a question that I was also interested in understanding, “Beth, why are you doing this? Why are you being so accommodating and sharing? I know that it definitely wasn’t James’ idea to include me, and it probably took some convincing to get him on board.”

Beth was momentarily caught off guard, and she stumbled into an answer. “I just, I mean, it doesn’t really cost me anything, does it? And you’ve been great, and J likes you, and I like what I've seen of you. It just makes a lot of sense, y’know?”

The connection Beth and I shared must have developed overnight because I got a glimpse of the accurate picture. It was equal parts saccharinely sweet and horribly wistful. Beth wanted Sam to be intimate with me so that way she could always have someone in her corner. It was a gamble, reasoning that with our magical soul swap, she couldn’t be forced out of the relationship. Including Sam would get her a best friend she could trust. Instead of fighting over petulant boys or favors from abusive men, they would share the best husband. Beth wanted what Sam had — love to the point of obsession, a caring parent, security and safety, people she could trust and rely on. But she didn’t know what to do with any of that. She had never lived with any of those for any length of time, so she didn’t know how to sustain them. Having them today wasn’t the goal — having them for the rest of her life was.

She couldn’t break up with someone who held her soul, and she was aware that she was fantastically overinvested in a situation in which she had no idea how to act. Her solution was to double down and invite Sam — because Sam could teach her how to be a loving wife, caring mother, and wise woman. She couldn't screw this up, so she invited Sam to teach her how to do the job.

What a mess.

The frantic glance Beth immediately shot at me informed me that she was aware that I understood more than what Sam had been told. She was panicking that I would back out of giving Sam a first time to remember to comfort her, and she didn’t want that. I offered a minute nod to indicate my agreement, but I wanted to return to her concerns at some point soon. If I could ever find a moment to catch my breath.

Sam astutely noticed something was off as well. “I think you’re blowing smoke up my ass with that, but if you don’t want to answer yet, that’s fine. I certainly can’t begrudge you anything right now.”

Beth pressed on by returning to the question that still hadn’t been answered, “So, how would you like to do this? We don’t even have to do it now if you have an idea that needs more setup. And, should I make myself scarce? I can’t imagine you want me here.”

Sam reflected for a moment and then surprised me by saying, “No, I don’t think so. We will be sharing him for the rest of our lives, right? I don’t think it will bother me, but I’d like you to stay nearby, so I get a feel for it. If it’s too weird, I’ll say something, but I imagine I’ll have other things on my mind once we get started. We’re, like, co-girlfriends, right? Team Girlfriend? It would feel wrong to kick you out of his bedroom. We should set up some rules regarding that, but later. Even if I had some greater fantasy, I wouldn’t care anymore. The anticipation is killing me, and the yo-yoing emotions make me want to do this now, so I know it will have happened at least once.”

She said the last sentence staring into my eyes, and slipped her hand behind my neck to pull me into a kiss. I embraced Sam as we locked lips, my hand sliding down her body. It slid over her chest, rubbing along the shirt she was wearing and brushing against Beth on its way down Sam’s body. Eventually, I reached my destination.

And was surprised to find that I only felt cold skin at the bottom of her shirt. Sam had slipped into my bed and been sandwiched between Beth and me all night, snuggled intimately between us, and she hadn’t worn any undergarments. She had spent the entire night dreaming about precisely this, pretending that it was a typical night and that she belonged there. She was absolutely right about that and I intended to give her what she deserved.

I pushed my hand under the hem of her shirt as our tongues dueled in her mouth. Drawing my hand across her smooth skin, I left a trail of goosebumps as she shivered from the contact. It progressed to her well-endowed chest, where I cupped one of her breasts, her soft flesh spilling out over my fingers. I flicked my thumb across her rapidly stiffening nipple, and she released a gasp into my mouth.

Several minutes passed like this, our mouths becoming intimately acquainted and my hands exploring her entire body with much different intentions than the previous night. When I withdrew from our kiss, Sam’s eyes were glazed over with lust, a dreamy expression on her face, and her chest rose and fell as she panted needy shallow breaths. I pushed the sheets down the bed and out of the way and was surprised to find Beth helping Sam sit up and then taking the older girl's shirt off.

Completely uncovered now, the momentary veneer of confidence was stripped from Sam. She seemed vulnerable and exposed as I moved on top of her to kiss her again. That wasn’t my true destination, as I kissed her mouth, and then up her jawline, her earlobe, and down her neck. The goosebumps returned as I kissed down her clavicle to her breasts, placing gentle kisses between her mounds before lightly bestowing each nipple with some attention.

Eventually, I managed to push myself past her impeccable breasts where I could’ve spent the rest of my life, and I continued, placing kisses on each of her ribs as I progressed down her abdomen. The little peck I placed directly on her navel must have tickled because her little grunt of approval to my touch was blended with a stifled giggle.

My ceaseless trail of kisses continued along her hips. I left a tormentingly teasing kiss on her mons before leading the path away, out along her hips and to her legs. I progressed, intentionally remaining on the tops of Sam’s legs. My hands brushed over her abdomen as I lowered my body down hers, and she quivered in anticipation. When I reached her kneecap, I paused and looked at Sam’s face.

She was chewing on her lip, her head and shoulders lifted up on a pillow so she could watch me enjoy her body. Beth was curled up against her and was whispering into her ear. I mentally reached out into the ether, grasping at the distant strings of my connection to Beth, and found her train of thought. She told Sam everything running through my mind as I worshiped her perfect form with my gentle caresses, letting the older yet inexperienced woman know how everyone else viewed her.

Sam was captured by Beth’s words, hanging on every syllable, because she knew they were from me. Although hooded and glazed with lust and anticipation, her eyes were deftly centered on my face. She wanted more, that much was clear from the shameless expression she displayed, but she wanted me to make the decisions.

I gently nudged her legs apart, placing insistent pecks on the insides of her thighs to pressure her into spreading herself open in front of me. Sam whimpered and quivered as my mouth moved further up her legs toward my inevitable goal. I could recognize her anxiety and embarrassment with my draconic perception and her arousal and need with my human senses. I realized why she was growing more concerned as I returned to her petals. The arousal she had during the massage was ostensibly typical for Sam.

She was soaked. Even more than the previous night, where she had some cloth to absorb her release, her skin was visibly wet. Several beads of her arousal had pooled on her skin from where they had dripped and collected. Above her slit, she had a perfectly manicured heart-shaped tuft of bright red hair. I ran a finger through it as I brought my face close to her. Manipulating the hair caused some of her skin to stretch, and her lips separated momentarily, a string of her lubrication left connecting the sides of her entrance.

Sam spoke up for the first time since we had kissed.

“Sorry. You should let me take a shower. I know I’m, um, productive? You don’t have to do that. I’ll go clean myself, and then we can do it, instead.”

I opened my mouth to comfort her, but Beth spoke before I did.

“Oh, honey, you have nothing to be concerned about. You need to stop apologizing for being you. This is certainly better than the alternative. Look at James; look at his eyes. Does he look grossed out by you? No, he looks hungry. He looks like a predator that just found some delectable prey, and he’s going to pounce and take her to new heights very soon.

“You know what he’s thinking? He thinks it’s hot as fuck that you get so worked up. He’s feeling proud that he caused this in you. He’s happy you’re so ready for him because it will make it better for you. But he’s going to take his time, and enjoy you, and get you really worked up, to make it the best that it can be. He wants nothing but the best for you. So stop fretting over your insecurities and just focus on what you feel from him. Let your brain go for a few minutes.”

Sam was watching my face as Beth spoke, and I nodded in agreement with her assertions. Sam bit her lip again, nervous energy apparent in her eyes before she exhaled forcefully. She reached out and ran a hand through my hair, then closed her eyes and allowed her shoulders to sink back into the pillows.

With her tacit approval, I kissed her mons intently, peppering her mound with love. I brushed around the insides of her hips with my hand, massaging and stroking around her vagina, hoping to draw her under the swell of lust and out of her anxious mind. I kissed at the top of her slit, my lips adjacent to her clit, my exhaled breath flowing against her engorged hood.

My fingers advanced and came into contact with her lips. She shuddered when they did, a moan released from her other lips, and I cautiously stroked her. Her juices rapidly moistened my fingertips, preparing them perfectly for manipulating her sensitive folds. Still kissing her intimate places, I brought a finger directly over her entrance. Wet with her plentiful juices, it slipped in to the first knuckle with no resistance. Instinctually, she raised her hips off the bed, attempting to draw more of my finger inside of her.

With my face, I pressed her back down into the mattress. She gasped at the sudden forcefulness, and I felt her grip around the tip of my finger. I could feel that she was dying of need and rapidly increasing impatience, so I deliberately fully inserted the finger into her. She desperately groaned out as I entered her, her velvet inside clamping down on the intruder and her hand gripping my hair tightly. I gave her a moment to adjust to the new feeling, and then I kissed her clit. The sensation was somewhat numbed by her hood, but she jerked like I had shocked her. Her grip on my hair yanked my head further into her crotch, my initial soft contact converted into a forceful faceful of her.

That was when I got my first taste of her, and I can honestly say that I was hooked from the first moment. Sam was unlike any other girl I had ever been with — her juices were sweet, with tantalizing hints of citrus or honey. I was already committed to ensuring I gave her the best I was capable of, an easy task with such a beautiful specimen, but her surprisingly enticing output made me want to do it for my sake. I was no longer eating her out because I wanted her to cum before we had sex to ensure she had a good experience and was undeniably ready. I was now making out with her lower lips for my own enjoyment.

I spread her open with my lubricated fingers and pressed on. I explored every part of her that I could reach with my tongue and my teeth. Time became meaningless as I became obsessed with devoting my mouth to pleasuring Sam. She was overwhelmed and passive for the first minute, but as she became accustomed to having my tongue buried inside her, she slowly became a participant. When I drew back her hood, her clit pink and inflamed and engorged with blood, she firmly held my hair to moderate my advances. My first lick was an experience Sam immediately demanded more of, and she pulled my face against her, insisting I continue by dragging me up and down against her sensitive nub.

I want to say that my first time with Sam was a perfect experience and that she was amazing. It wasn’t precisely that. She was incredibly hot and engaged with what I was doing to her, and responsive in the extreme. That was part of the issue. The unsettling moans and groans she expelled sounded much more like she was in pain or distress than that she was overcome with pleasure. In a roundabout way, that was comforting; If she had any brainpower left for self-awareness, she would have been mortified to hear herself. Instead, she was overwhelmed, and all cognitive function was shut down while she came on my tongue.

And cum she did. A ghastly, horrible, alarming sound grew out of her lungs as she wrapped her legs around my head and writhed in beautiful agony on the bed. Her juices flowed freely, positively drenching my face, and I continued lapping up the goddess's nectar as dutifully as possible. For thirty seconds, my world was nothing but disturbing whines from her mouth, soft thighs firmly pressed against my ears, and her syrup on my tongue.

She gave one final rasping gasp and released my head from her capture. Her completely vacant and unresponsive eyes stared into space, and a dumb smile grew on her face even as she took worryingly desperate breaths. I noticed then that her other hand was firmly held by Beth’s and that the younger woman was giving me intense bedroom eyes of her own.

I moved up, climbing Sam’s incredible body until I was on top of her. I held myself there, her legs splayed around me as she lay mindless on the bed. Beth brushed some of Sam’s hair out of the overcame woman’s face. The slight sheen of sweat made the stray strand stick to her flushed expression.

An intense, forceful breath punctuated the otherwise quiet room. The focus returned to Sam’s eyes, and she stared into my soul.

“Wow.”

“You cum so beautifully, sweet thing.”

She giggled, a little bit of embarrassment leaking through.

“How do you feel now? Sensitive? Do you want to continue?”

The fire returned to her eyes. Now she had her faculties and was reminded of what we were doing and what she wanted.

“James, the only reason I’ll accept for you to stop now is if the building is literally falling apart around us, and we need to leave to survive. And I’ll expect you to immediately take me to a hotel room.”

I exhaled and smirked, “Alright. So, you’re ready then?”

“I was ready last night. I was ready five minutes ago. Are you trying to torture me by dragging this out longer?”

I kissed her and moved her legs with my own. I rotated her hips, so her legs were angled upwards, opening her entirely to me. She was spread underneath me and no longer nearly as tense as she had been. My questions confirming her feelings hadn’t been helpful, as they had only reminded her of what she was doing and caused her to become slightly agitated.

Sam was utterly malleable in my hands, positioning herself exactly as I manipulated her. She had drawn her legs up, and they buffered against my sides. I shifted my hips one final time, aligning myself with her channel and drawing my dick against her. She gasped at the first contact and then gasped again as I moved it back and forth across her, spreading her juices all over myself. I guided my head to her opening and felt her tense up and hold her breath. I used a finger to spread her skin, preventing myself from tugging on her as a precaution, even though I believed her to be too well lubricated for it to be an issue.

Beth had noticed Sam freeze as I climbed to the precipice. Much to my surprise, she kissed Sam. The redhead released a sharp squeak while I realized what Beth was doing: Beth injected herself into Sam’s perception so Sam would relax as I entered her, distracted by a new person kissing her. I waited for several heartbeats for the initial shock of the kiss to fade, and as Sam relaxed into it, I pressed into her.

Sam’s sheathe was so incredibly tight that I was momentarily worried, but she was likewise so soft and slick that I eventually entered her. My head slipped into her more forcefully than I had desired, and Sam groaned a mild “Oww.” Beth dropped the kiss so that Sam could speak if she needed to.

I froze where I was, trying to let her adjust. She met my eyes, and the pain retreated from her expression in just a few seconds. She wiggled her hips, scraping her walls against my head, and then wrapped her legs around my waist, her ankles pressing into my back and pulling me into her. One of her arms went around my chest, and she pulled me into her face, where she mashed her lips to mine. Gone were the tentative, testing kisses from earlier. Sam was insistently demanding more with her lips.

Even so, I kept the pace on my hips slow. Sam held me with three of her limbs, tightly wrapping her legs around my back and holding me with one of her arms. Her other arm tightly held one of Beth’s hands. She quickly returned to providing her lust-fueled moans and groans into the air, completely disregarding that they went directly into my lungs through our lip lock. My two arms wrapped behind her back, tying the two of us together into a single temporary body.

Her reactions told me what she wanted. It was different from my experiences with Beth, which was to be expected. Beth, I realized, wanted the dragon to come out. She had an unshakeable belief that I would never hurt her with our connection, so she wanted to explore and try things she wasn’t comfortable doing with any of her previous partners. She knew that if she set a line, I would go right up to it but not a hair's breadth past. She had found it liberating to let me have ultimate control, placing herself entirely in my trust.

Sam didn’t want that. She wanted to be held and cherished, and loved. Her ideal paradise had lots of soft things, sweet nothings, and desserts and was very straightforward. She didn’t need quite the same bite that really got Beth going.

So I didn’t give her any. The dragon poked its head up, observed for a moment, concluded that I was a better partner for Sam, and returned to its rest. I enjoyed Sam, lovingly intimate and close. I slowly ground into her, adjusting my angle to draw along her insides in the way she best responded to. Where Beth and I had fucked, Sam and I made love. It was intense not in the pace of my thrusts or the ferocity of our coupling but rather in the magnitude of the connection in our minds.

Beth observed and whispered some of my thoughts into Sam’s ears. She held Sam’s hand with her own but reached between our now sweaty bodies with the other. She spent a few minutes playing with Sam’s plentiful breasts as I patiently stroked her insides before moving her hand lower. Sam twitched and groaned into my mouth when Beth found her target. I could feel her hand digging into my pelvis every time I bottomed out, pressing her dainty fingers into Sam’s clit while I filled her insides.

After only another dozen strokes, Sam’s eyes went wild, and her pussy clamped down on me, rippling intensely. Her knees clenched around my waist, attempting to press together, and her arm around my back seized up, encircling my neck. It was an incredible feeling, having her so enraptured around me. Her reactions were positively intoxicating. Her little groans and whimpers had been growing, and I had prepared myself for her climax.

I had wanted her to experience a release from intercourse proper, and now that she had, I reckoned it would be most courteous not to intentionally prolong the experience further. She would be sore and tired once the hormones clouding her mind faded, inexperienced as she was and unaccustomed to such an intrusion. I gripped her shoulders tightly, hilted myself entirely inside of her, and embraced my own orgasm. Sam’s insides were already grasping me, but as I filled her womb to the brim, her silky hold became an iron death grip. Her legs locked me into her again, cementing our hips together. For a moment, we were one. I felt our souls touch, a glimpse of her laid bare before me in the ether.

I was lost, overcome by the feeling of Sam’s body. When I finished releasing myself into her and my brain slowly recovered, I realized two things had happened. I wasn’t precisely prepared for either of them, but neither was I shocked by what I observed.

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The first, slightly more surprising observation was that Beth had joined us in our release. She had collapsed on the bed, panting and flushed, her eyes hazy and unfocused. I had been relatively focussed on Sam, but I was reasonably confident that Beth hadn’t actually tried to get herself off during the experience. She had also been intent on ensuring Sam enjoyed this.

The second, less surprising observation was that Sam was neither breathing nor moving. At some point, in the middle of her orgasm, she had slipped into the same stasis that Beth had. I suppressed my instinctive need to panic. I willed myself to believe that she would be fine, just as Beth had been. The dragon concurred but offered no explanation. He seemed as confused about why this was happening as I was, but he wasn’t scared by it.

I listened to my own heartbeat and breathing for a few seconds, centering myself and preventing the rush of horror. Sam was okay; this was just some part of my mysterious origin. It had apparently also done something to Beth again. Everything was going to be okay. I just needed to wait.

A minute passed, and the noises changed. Beth’s uncontrolled breathing calmed, and Sam gasped back into life. She had a crazed, wild look on her face, but it faded when she saw where she was and what she was doing. Instead of freaking out how I expected her to, she started crying. I was concerned when I could feel that they were tears of absolute elation. It didn’t have the same clarity or precision as my knowledge of Beth’s emotions, but it was more comprehensible than the initial fleeting whispers I had felt several days ago.

Sam had been instantaneously concerned that it had all been a dream. The out-of-body experience had her doubting that it was real. She realized after a moment that it wasn’t just a delusional fabrication and was conquered by her immense emotions.

I slipped along her side and held her as she cried. After another minute, Beth recovered herself, and we made a Sam sandwich, embracing the overwrought girl. Sam relaxed after five minutes, her shoulders slumping and settling into the bed, her eyes closing entirely. Her tears concluded, she now giggled giddily, a fanatical edge to her laughs. Beth and I remained silent, allowing Sam to let everything out.

Eventually, Sam returned to her mind, and she whispered, “Oh, this is the best day of my life. Beth, Beth, lovely Beth, thank you so much. I’m like you now. I can feel it. More than my shitty magic. I can feel all of him.”

I understood what she was saying, but Beth didn’t follow yet. “Sam, you’re kinda freaking me out. What are you talking about?”

“I’m his. I’m tied to him like you are. I don’t even care what caused it. I can feel him, all of him! Oh, this is wonderful.”

Sam hummed happily to herself for a moment before suddenly sitting straight up and grabbing Beth’s shoulders, looking fiercely into her eyes.

“Wait, Beth, shit. Are you still tied to him? Can you still feel him? I didn’t fuck that up, did I? Oh god, please tell me I didn’t ruin that. Tell me I didn’t steal him from you. Oh, fuck.”

Sam was practically hyperventilating with intense woe, suddenly swallowed by anguish that she had unintentionally wronged Beth. I understood where the thought was coming from, but she had no reason to worry — I was still very connected to Beth.

“Sam, relax. You didn’t break my connection to Beth.”

The redhead retained her intense grip on the teenager until Beth echoed my statement. Then, it was as if all the tension was released, and Sam collapsed back on the bed. She laughed again, but it was entirely joyous and jubilant.

I withdrew from the bed and snuck into the bathroom, where I acquired a washcloth and a towel. Soaking the hand cloth in warm water, I returned to my bedroom and found Beth clinging to Sam as if they were longtime lovers, chatting amicably.

Beth lifted her head and spoke to me as I wiped down Sam, first with the warm wet cloth and then with the dry towel. They had shifted over several feet, moving out of the substantial wet spot Sam had produced.

“So, you noticed I came when you did, right?” The brunette asked.

I nodded, “I certainly noticed that you had a strong reaction, but I wasn’t sure of the specifics.”

“Well, when you pumped your baby batter into her, I could feel, like, a phantom J dick filling me up as well. In just a second, I went from pretty hot from watching you love Sam all gentle like to cum drunk J’s cock addict. It was intense.”

“And you think this is some part of my draconic essence forcing you to?”

“Well, it’s definitely you. I don’t know what exactly is doing it, nor am I complaining. I don’t even mind that you shot off in her if it does that to me.”

She shifted her gaze to Sam expectantly, as if somehow Sam had something to add as to why Beth had come without trying to.

Surprisingly, she did. Sam nodded in agreement and supplied, “It’s definitely you. When you two went at it the other nights, I…” she trailed off and blushed, looking properly embarrassed for a moment before continuing, “I overheard a lot. It was frustrating, though. I didn’t want to hear you. I wanted to be the girl in here with you. So I tried to ignore it, but then I heard her go off, and then you grunt, and then all of a sudden, I’m flooding my bed and only have thoughts about you taking me. Then you knocked on my door and were all freaked out, and I wanted to die. I had just somehow came with shockingly little warm-up to thoughts of you plastering the little pixie in here through the mattress. I desperately needed to change my sheets and my shorts, and you were asking for my help, and my mind was still in a post cum fog of pink-loving thoughts, and I hated you for picking her instead of me, and I wanted you to just bend me over the bed then and there.”

That was a lot to take in and helped to explain why she had been so frustrated that night and the following day. What a mess.

“So, even though you weren’t involved or in the room, I somehow affected you.”

Sam nodded happily and then groaned as I cleaned up the mess I had left inside her.

“God, James, I don’t think a doctor would be able to locate some of my organs right now. You just pushed them right out of the way. Jesus Christ, I understand why Beth makes so much noise. How do you get that baseball bat of yours to fit inside her at all? She’s so tiny!” Sam visibly compared herself to Beth as the more petite woman giggled and bantered back.

“I’m surprised you had any issues at all. Was all of that from you, or did we puncture our water mattress? We could probably go for a swim in what you spilled on the bed.”

Sam covered her face in mock horror, both hands obscuring her beautiful features. “Ohmigod, stopppppp. This is so embarrassing. If I could feel my legs, I would hide in my bedroom.”

Beth smiled and confidently said, “Sam, this is your bedroom now.”

Sam rolled onto her stomach and covered her head with a pillow, hiding herself from Beth's quick comments. She released a shrill squeak, half glee from finally having what she wanted and half bashful modesty. She kicked her feet on the bed in nervous energy, her perfectly pedicured toes beating a chaotic rhythm into the sheets.

In her emotive outburst, she must not have retained a stern handle on her energy. Her childish outburst was capped off by the pillowcase she was firmly smothering herself with bursting into flames.

Beth leaped off the bed and shouted, "Sam, what the fuck?!"

The minuscule flame sprouting from each of the redhead's fingertips snuffed out as she lifted the pillow off her head. She looked at Beth in confusion and followed Beth's outstretched hand to look at the scorched pillowcase. Blackened streaks aligned with her fingers were scored in the fabric, leaving undeniable evidence of the sudden inflammation.

Sam sat bewildered, incredulously looking at her hand and the damaged cloth. After a moment of inspection, she lifted her hand into the air, and a spark of electricity bounced across her fingertips before running a circle around her wrist. It traveled up her arm, across her shoulders, and down the other arm, where it disappeared into her palm.

She looked at me in amazement.

"James, James, what did you do?"

"I don't know. I didn't feel you take energy from me for that. Did you have extra remaining from this week?"

Sam shook her head, her eyes collecting a new well of tears as her crimson locks bounced back and forth.

"I didn't take it from you. It's like you gave it to me. There's more mana in me now than I've ever had before. It feels like yours, but it's coming from me. It's like you created a permanent link between our pools."

Her eyes grew wide as her mind contemplated the possibilities. "James, I can cast spells now. James. James, I can cast your spells now. I’m not just a witch."

Beth asked a reasonable question from our position of ignorance as Sam gingerly lifted herself to hug me.

"Is that normal? Like, becoming a woman unlocking some of your potential? Or a mate thing like with the weres?"

Sam was too obsessed with hugging me, her arms and legs wrapped around my torso and her face buried against my chest. She repeated a constant mantra of "Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!" for a minute as she played with little sparks of evocation from her fingertips.

She withdrew and kissed me lightly, her eyes glowing with delirious elation. Beth repeated her question, and Sam answered with slurred, imprecise words.

"No, it's super weird and not normal, and I don't care. I feel overfilled, a sponge submerged and removed from J's ocean of energy. Even if it's just a one-time thing and it disappears today, I don't care. I'm dripping with energy and I can feel areas of magic I’ve never tried before, and J gave it to me."

Beth smirked and smugly said, "You did a bit more than drip."

In contrast to her earlier embarrassment, Sam now smiled dreamily and nodded proudly. She had the decency to blush, but it wasn't entirely from shame. Her transformative shift in behavior caught Beth completely unprepared, and the younger woman looked at me in confusion. I shrugged.

Sam spent the next half hour bubbling with joy like an intoxicated youth while Beth and I attempted to manage her. She played with her newfound magical reserves, frivolously creating a light show of sparks and flames that danced around the bedroom ceiling. Suddenly bored of playing with her novel deluge of energy, Sam crawled across the bed to hug Beth. Her movements were janky and imprecise, and she ended up draping herself over the teenager inelegantly instead of nuzzling her lovingly. She babbled out an incoherent stream of gratitude to Beth, using shockingly more aggressive language than I had come to expect this week. Even Beth was surprised at some of the things that came out of her mouth. It made me slightly nostalgic for the edgy teen Sam had pretended to be.

When she had been distracted from encapsulating the brunette, she gasped and cast thin streams of fire at Beth and me. Beth flinched horribly, clenching her eyes shut and preparing for the worst. Instead, the stream wrapped itself around our heads, forming fiery, wreathed crowns. Sam announced that since I was the head of dragons, I was a king, and Beth must be the queen. The dragon preened at such a blunt declaration, but given the clearly affected source, I found it uncomfortable.

She concluded her sudden act of delirium by pulling Beth down to the bed and locking lips with her, slurring her words and smearing messy trails of saliva on the other woman's face. Beth simply endured the spontaneous Sapphic moment to prevent any escalation while Sam was acting strangely. Sam mumbled out thanks and how much she owed Beth for letting her be with me and for making her first time the best ever and begged Beth to tell her how she could pay her back.

And then, like a switch flipped, Sam stopped what she was doing and hid under the blankets, the pillow again obscuring her face. The crowns on our heads faded from existence, and Sam tried to disappear with them.

Beth put her hand on Sam's hips through the sheets and asked, "Sam, are you back down to earth?"

"Please tell me that was just my imagination. I didn't just light the pillow on fire, grind on J, cast a bunch of spells that I’ve never tried before, and then swap saliva with Beth, right?"

Beth and I exchanged glances, and then I said, "Well, you also asked Beth what you could to reimburse her for letting me, and I quote, 'plow your little kitty until harvest time.' And you made us crowns with your newfound magic reserves and asked when the royal wedding was being held, and then started suggesting names for our heirs and asked if it was bad for a king to bring a bridesmaid on his honeymoon."

"Please kill me. I can't ever look either of you in the eyes again."

"That's quite a shame. I rather like looking at yours. As the newly crowned monarch, I'll have to decree a day of mourning for this great loss in our kingdom."

"Stoooooooooop."

Beth spoke next, "So, what on earth was that, Sam?"

"I don't know. It was like I was drunk on J-juice."

Beth giggled and went to torment Sam's unfortunate wording, but the redhead shouted over her.

"NOT like that; His magical energy. His mana. I can still feel it in me. I've still got way, way more than I had earlier, but not so much that I'm intoxicated and acting like a freshman with her first drink. I've got a nice little buzz of J's energy coursing through me, but before it's like I was completely gorged on it, stuffed to bursting, uninhibited because of his attention. Right when we finished, I felt good, but then after a few minutes, it completely overwhelmed me."

With every sentence, Beth continued sniggering at how Sam's words could be misinterpreted.

"So you got filled with J’s magical sauce, huh?"

"Ohmigod, I'm moving out. Beth, please, what else would explain it? I've touched his mana before, and he got me to cum with it, even while holding me in his arms, and I didn’t have this kind of reaction. It's not like touching his dick was enough to cause it, or I would've woken up magic drunk from snuggling the entire night. What else would've caused it?"

Beth asked a question I should have posed earlier, "Could it be from getting magically pregnant?"

Sam didn't respond instantly, but when she did, her voice finally sounded wholly sober, the shock of our shortsighted lack of preparation jarring her out of her elation. "I don't believe so. I have an IUD, but they're probably not dragon certified, so I have no idea how that works. Even if that happened, I've never heard of this kind of reaction, even between a witch and a mythic, but it's also possible that dragons do something different."

Beth faux whispered, a conspiratorial edge to her voice, "Imagine explaining to your mom that you got pregnant the first time you did anything with a boy and that now there's a seventh dragon in the world, her grandbaby."

"Oh God, I'm changing my name and moving to Guatemala."

Eager to spare Sam any further embarrassment, especially considering it wasn’t deserved in the slightest, I asked a question I had stored in the back of my mind.

“Sam, you said I didn’t accept your Facebook request. I haven’t used social media in years, and besides, wouldn’t part of my transition to this world mean not using any of my old accounts anyway? Why did you need to send me a request anyway — I’m sure we’re still friends unless you removed me.”

Sam lifted the pillow off her face to look at me in confusion, “Not Facebook, Fae Book. It’s a magic networking service, one part Facebook, one part eBay, one part LinkedIn or Indeed, one part Instagram. Aisling created an account for you the first day — there are pictures of you in the gym and when we went out to breakfast and of us all dolled up together in the courthouse when Aisling announced you. They’re linked to a real account with your name and some generic blurb and everything. Didn’t she give you instructions for activating your account and magically signing in? It’s a whole thing for important figures like you to be accessible to commoners like me.”

Beth had returned to laying against Sam’s side now that the witch had calmed down, and she whispered, “You’re anything but common.”

I smiled at the sultry comment pulled right from my mind, but my eyes were drawn to the manilla folder and laptop on the desk. Over the course of the tumultuous week, I had entirely forgotten to investigate why my name was written there.

"I'm willing to bet she did leave me information, and I've just been a bit too busy to read it."

Beth asked, "Wait, you never set that up? I've been looking through all of the pictures of us that we’ve been tagged in. Everyone loved the dresses we all wore to court. Got a bunch of messages asking how to get in contact with you, too. People must’ve seen us out to eat and asked if you would be comfortable making appearances at their restaurants and which dishes you would prefer.”

I cringed internally at the prospect of being used as a promotional advertisement for arbitrary restaurants. Complimentary dinner would be nice — the ass-kissing and performative social dance would be exhausting. I really hoped I could nip that in the bud before it became a trend.

I slid out the desk chair, sat down, and looked over the manilla folder. Inside was indeed a whole pamphlet of instructions, welcoming me to the realm, giving me a list of instructions for activating my profile on the Fae Book, and a number of contacts to reach out to once I had done that. A little USB dongle was inside the folder.

The USB adapter and the threaded cord were familiar, but the dongle was a device I had never seen before. It resembled an old-style hard candy if they came in matte black on the end of a phone cable, a thumbprint-sized circle with depressions on both the top and the bottom. My instinct was to pinch it between my thumb and forefinger as an authentication method.

I turned on the laptop and allowed it to get to the desktop while I read the instructions. My instincts proved to be somewhat correct, except that it also needed a taste of my mana in addition to my fingerprint. I was meant to push mana into my fingers like I had during Sam’s massage while pinching the device. Maybe Antonin wouldn’t berate me for being so irresponsible with my abilities and my friends' lives — as long as I led him to believe I had done this first.

While I read, Beth slid over to the end of the bed to watch the monitor over my shoulder. Sam stated her intention to go to the bathroom, but when she stood up, her legs wobbled and then gave out, and she ended up crumpling right back onto the edge of the bed. With Beth’s assistance, her second attempt was much more successful, and the two girls went to the bathroom together. I felt a tinge of envy from Beth as they left the room. She didn’t begrudge Sam a pleasant first experience; she wished she could have had the opportunity as well. It made my heart ache for her.

After misleading instructions had guided me to the wrong page initially (apparently, I was recovering an existing account, not activating a new account — even though I had never used this service before, it had been set up for me in advance), I plugged the dongle in to verify my identity. I pinched it as the instructions described and gently allowed a raindrop of energy to pool in my fingertips. The device beeped and flashed green, and the website loaded a new interface.

A form appeared, with a significant amount already filled in with incredibly vague information. James ‘Anderson’ the ‘Business Analyst Consultant’ scrolled past me. The birthday was correct, but the year was several off. My interests were filled in but nondescript. There was a profile picture of me in the suit I wore to Aisling’s meeting, but I didn’t recall anyone taking our photo. The height listed was how tall I was a week ago.

I didn’t really care about making the information precisely correct, so I simply hit accept, and a new page loaded. It asked me to confirm, deny, or delay a bunch of requests and asked if I wanted to see the ones flagged as high-priority first or view them chronologically. I went with chronological order under the assumption that there wouldn’t actually be very many. My little time spent on a software developer internship had taught me that if the sender could flag something as important, some would simply because the option was there while others would literally never use the option. In essence, the flag wouldn’t be remarkably accurate in many cases.

The first request in my stack was a relationship: friend request from Sam. I hesitated for a moment over the decline, wondering if that was the title she wanted to use now. In the end, I clicked accept with the intention of asking her and updating it later. The subsequent requests were equally as predictable: friend from Cynthia and Beth and employer from Evgenia. I wanted to put a pin in that, as well, to discuss later. I laughed out loud when Antonin marked me down as ‘Research Associate’ because of how it was both technically correct and absolutely absurd. Surprisingly, there was a message that didn’t request a response from Marjorie, thanking me for trusting her with our clothing for the public appearance and encouraging me to return if I ever needed anything else.

Then I hit next and was reading a message from someone I had never met. Not only did I not recognize their name or the profile image that appeared when I hovered over it, but they stated as such in the message. I wondered how they had gotten my account inbox when I hadn’t even activated it, but they then said they found my name in the minutes of the open court session and that they had a proposal for me and wanted to meet to discuss it.

The second thing I noticed was that the ticker on the bottom of the page said 7/2,039.

What a mess.

I wrote up a very generic “Thank you, but not at this time” response, explaining how I wasn’t looking to get involved with anything new right now. I described that I was still overwhelmed by traveling and wanted to get to know the area before committing to anything, but that they could reach out to me again in a couple months. Then I rapid-fire copy-and-pasted it to every request where I didn’t immediately recognize the sender, only momentarily glancing over the contents to ensure it was probably something I wasn’t interested in.

It gave me a really twisted view of the community I had been thrust into. The majority of the first 1500 or so messages were straightforward business requests or generalized spam messages. Someone, somewhere, must’ve collected enough information to put the pieces together because suddenly, the solicitors seemed to be aware that I was a dragon. The requests got incredibly specific, personal, and made me feel gross. I really should have consulted Evgenia before I sent these messages, this was her area of expertise after all, but I felt comfortable simply declining for the time being. I wasn’t going to be starting any negotiations until I spoke to Antonin, and maybe Aisling herself, about how people knew who I was and what I was. Unfortunately, knowing that they were now specifically written for me personally, I felt more inclined to read them. That was a mistake.

Some of the highlights included:

A witch sent a request for me to refill her crystals. Attached to the message was a twenty-picture photoshoot of her completely nude body in various poses, her nipples and genitals obscured in each photo by one of the crystals in question. The final picture was a full frontal nude where she had spread her legs and inserted a crystal partially inside herself, with the text “just 4 u <3” at the top obscuring her face.

An orc chieftain, referring to himself as Agnatosh the Defiler, sent a request for two liters of dragon's saliva, offering to exchange goods, services, or property to match my valuation. He then said he had a personal museum of sorts, a trophy collection of intriguing things related to powerful beings. He wanted to know what it would cost to acquire the first detached spike off my tail for his collection, alongside a signature for verification purposes. He opened his bid at fifty kilograms of gold… and his firstborn daughter. Not in marriage, but as my property to handle as I saw fit.

An Enchantress in Aisling's court sent me an invitation to her adult niece’s 21st birthday party. She had heard the legends of the proficiency of dragons in the past and had recently come into a bit of money. She danced around it in her prudish wording, but she wanted to know how much I would charge to be an eye candy boy toy for the party and then to deflower her niece after the party ended. In her words, “It’s about time that Cindy got over herself and became a woman. I'm sure you'll give her the best time money can buy.” I would not be calling the phone number she left.

The vampire baroness Lady Katharina Lothar von Metternich inquired about the possibility of acquiring a regular donation of dragon’s blood. She didn’t put it quite so bluntly, but she wanted to Uber Eats my blood. She wanted me to show up at her estate, let her chow down on my neck while I took care of her other needs, and then shoo me out the door. She managed to spin it as a positive, saying that she could “be very discreet” and that “there was no need for the possibility of a doctor running to the papers with a scandal — she could take the blood right from the source.” She offered me one afternoon a month with each of her daughters, not her biological daughters, but the women she had turned into vampires over her many years. Based on the lengthy contact information she provided, that would have consumed literally all of my free time.

Of course, mixed in with the later messages were several much more appropriate ones. Zoey sent me a friend request and then a message with a twelve-week calendar, my workout plans all laid out for me. Kyle sent me a friend request, a message saying he needed to speak to me, and another panicked incoherent message asking what on earth his sister was talking about. The diner I had eaten at with Beth and Sam, and the sandwich shop I had eaten at with Zoey both sent polite messages thanking me for my patronage. Mallory sent me a friend request.

When I had only a dozen messages left, I felt filthy and really wanted to close my account and bury my head in the sand. I had long since turned the profile setting for accepting new proposals and all of its variations to false. I wanted to just go back to being a simple college student worrying about what I was doing in the future, not a power player on the political and economic stage being propositioned over what royalties would be appropriate to name fancy food dishes after me.

That’s when I opened the message. The timestamp read only an hour ago, and it wasn’t a business proposal. It was an invitation.

Esteemed Master Anderson,

We here at The Ether Congregation hope this message finds you well. We are pleased to cordially welcome you to our great community in the broader Delaware Valley area. It would bring us nothing but joy to be able to count the most magnificent dragon of our time as a patron of our services. We are the largest supplier of specialized labor and skillset acquisitions on the Eastern Seaboard, and it would be an immense honor to offer our available catalog to the greatest and most influential new being.

Fredrik Litteer,

Senior President, Community Relations

The Ether Congregation, GDV

A second message had arrived within milliseconds of that one, impersonal and formulaically inviting me to a presentation in three weeks. It suggested I peruse their online offerings to prepare myself before the banquet and offered a link to do so.

The invitation's vague wording and confusing nature filled my stomach with doubt and suspicion, but I clicked the link anyway. The most disgusting, reprehensible catalog of ‘goods’ I have ever been shown opened up in front of me.

A dozen mugshots, photographs of various humans and magical beings appeared on the screen. Under each was listed a designation, an estimated age, a brief description of skills and abilities, place of birth, and a list of previous residences. And then the number of prior owners and estimated price at auction.

Simply because I was a dragon, I had been invited to join a cabal of human traffickers and slavers. My mouth filled with cotton, and my stomach rolled like a fighter jet performing an evasive maneuver.

Because I realized I was no better than them.

I had been doing this already.

I tripped getting out of the chair, and landed on my knees roughly, my shin bursting into pain, before scrambling out through the door and down the hallway. I pushed open the bathroom door and slapped my hand against the light switch carelessly. Thankfully, I somehow connected with my target, and the room was illuminated. In a flash, I was hunched over the toilet, forcefully vomiting everything that had ever been inside me into the porcelain bowl.

As my first retch echoed around the bathroom, Beth burst through the doorway behind me, Sam only a few steps behind her.

“Oh baby, oh baby, what happened? What’s going on? Oh, James…”

I couldn’t answer her, but I forced a thought over our connection. I wasn’t okay, that was for sure, but I would be eventually. It had nothing to do with her or Sam. I would explain when I was done.

She rubbed my back and stood next to me as I emptied myself. Even as I began simply dry heaving, nothing remaining inside me to actually eject, she attempted to comfort me. Sam left briefly but returned carrying a box of tissues, a glass of water, and a concerned expression on her face.

It took nearly ten minutes, but I eventually calmed down. I rinsed my mouth with the water, blew my nose, and brushed my teeth without saying anything. I knew who my next words had to go to.

When I looked in the mirror over the bathroom sink and was no longer visually disgusted by what I saw, I stepped back into the hallway and took measured steps to the dining room, trying to contain my self-loathing. Evgenia and Cynthia were sitting at the table, each with an assortment of documents. They had been discussing something, but silence fell as I entered the room, both of them looking to see if I was alright. Beth and Sam followed behind me, confused and concerned.

“Ev. Ev, I’m sorry. I release you from your contract with me. I’m sorry.”

Instead of the subdued happiness I had hoped for, or the confusion I had expected, Evgenia looked at me in horror. Her eyes filled with fear and regret, and I suddenly wondered if my impulsive actions had once again hurt someone I cared for.