I was late to Cooking Class. Neither the teacher nor my fellow students even noticed. This late in the semester, we were rarely taught anything new. The first few weeks had included the basics of various knife grips, how to sharpen, optimal strategies for various vegetables, and so on. Basics of culinary expertise, to put it shortly. Attached to each of those lessons had been a meal that utilized them.

Eventually, meal making had become the primary focus of the lesson. The teacher’s role was that of an overseer, only participating if someone made rudimentary mistakes. Basically, we were left to practice what we had learned.

While I did enjoy cooking a free meal every week, my consideration of taking the Advanced Cooking Class next semester had more to do with what it offered. All skills here were, as stated, rudimentary. The lectures existed so that students got competent in making basic meals for themselves and didn’t just subsist on cheap instant-ramen, chocolate, and the occasional ‘healthy’ treat in the form of a raw vegetable. Also caffeine. Caffeine as pills, caffeine in coffee, caffeine in energy drinks, and caffeine through pills washed down with coffee brewed with energy drinks as a water substitute.

Personally, I had been tempted by that lifestyle and only the fact that I loved women more than videogames had prevented me from sliding into it. I did still have a minor caffeine addiction though.

In any case, I did want to improve my cooking skills. Yes, I fully expected Aclysia to eventually claim the kitchen as her domain. No, that was not reason enough that I shouldn’t be capable of preparing tasty treats. If nothing else, I wanted to have the option to be a useful help in the kitchen. To that end, the more advanced classes on various specializations of dish preparation, from deserts to seafood, could be useful.

Today, the food we were tasked with making was a casserole with a simple pudding dessert. Neither were complicated. When one was given two hours of cooking time, however, the care that went into something as simple as a glass form filled with goodies and cheese became exorbitant. Over the course of an hour, I carefully prepared all the vegetables, decided on a layering order, and considered how I would go about the firmness of my dish. A casserole, in my humble opinion, was more enjoyable when the piece of the dish stayed mostly consolidated. Egg was the binding agent of choice.

Much attention went into the dish. A whole lot of attention, more than anyone needed to hear about. While my creation heated in the oven, I spent twenty minutes chatting with the other students in the room. There were a few women here whom I was interested in. I feared my efforts to that end were spoiled. In my ever-honest flirtations, I had apparently offended someone who was part of a large friend group that was part of this class. Words must have been exchanged outside my reach. Exclusion was too strong a word to describe the treatment I got. We talked, without any of my flirting attempts being taken seriously or even laughed at. Certain was that I had been assigned a reputation that did not make me an attractive prospect.

That Esther came by every week had not changed that. I even felt that it had hardened their resolve to only deem me worthy of entertaining chit-chat. The assumption was that they saw our very physical relationship and decided that it was too much for them. Disappointing, to say the least. It served as a reminder that, for every Esther, Aclysia, or Voxxy I managed to meet, there were about five to twenty women who gave me the pass within five minutes.

I was charming, at least I thought so, and a bit lucky. Neither of those would have served me without being prolific in my attempts. Few people ever got what they wanted without working hard for it. A harem was no exception to that. All the individual rejections were disheartening. They were also the price I had to pay to get what I ultimately wanted.

With my chatter, I aimed to break down the walls that had been erected. An effort unlikely to pay off, but an effort that had to be made nonetheless. It was better than just staring at my cheese melting.

Eventually, I went back to my cooking station, prepared the pudding, and then the class was effectively over. People shared their casseroles, put what was left in containers they had brought along or tossed it away. By the time Esther entered the room, most of the other students had left.

My Queen strutted straight towards me, ignoring everyone else, and sat down on one of the tables at the back of the room. The several kitchens across the room were only for food preparation, actual eating took place back there. Wordlessly, she stared, her eyes wide, her pupils narrow. All signs that she was, well and truly, hungry.

Proper manners would have been to wait for Voxxy. Putting the goblin between Esther and her food would have been the quickest way to ensure that they had a negative first impression of each other. Therefore, as a wise man, I put reality before manners and served the famished lady of my love a first serving of the casserole.

The glass form was placed on a piece of porcelain, separating its hot form from the wood of the table. Careful not to burn myself, I held my creation with the aid of an oven cloth. I cut into the almost smooth surface of molten cheese, quartering my creation perfectly. Sadly, that did not account for much when I had to actually lift one of those quarters out. The egg was not enough to keep it all consolidated and the cheese drew strings. Chaos may have ruined the symmetry of the display, but the sweet and savoury smell meant that the edibility was maintained.

I had barely placed her plate in front of her, when Esther dug in. Chuckling, I watched her diminish the casserole. It was like she was inhaling the food. How she maintained grace while doing that was almost as much of a mystery as the question of when she chewed any of that. ‘Actually, she chews pretty little,’ I observed. ‘Wonder if that’s a sign of impatience, upbringing, or her species…’

Food was one of the few things Esther was outwardly impatient about. Even if her upbringing was still shrouded in mystery, she had obviously spent much of her formative years in the upper class. Similarly, I did not know her exact species, but I had narrowed it to about a dozen likely contenders. None of which, admittedly, I knew the chewing habits of.

It honestly could have been any of the three.

Esther was mostly through her first serving when Voxxy peeked her head in. I raised my hand to get her attention. Visibly relieved, she quickly came over to us. “Man, the campus is enormous,” she complained. Before I could respond, she had already turned her attention to Esther. “Hey, Voxxy Rundscrew, I guess you’re Karitas’ Queen?”

“Yes. My name is Esther,” the lady of my love responded in her tone. In the presence of a stranger, the true sternness of her tone surfaced again. She eyed the shortstack up and down, like an owl measured a mouse it was trying to swallow whole. “Sit,” she ordered, pointing at the chair opposite herself. “We eat first, then we talk.”

“Can’t we do both at the same time?” Voxxy asked, mildly confused.

“No.”

“Not much of a multi-tasker, ey?” the shortstack asked and did not get a response. After I had sat down at the head of the table, between them, she leaned over to me and whispered, audibly, “She always that fucking grumpy?”

I responded with a joking recommendation, “She gets nicer when you do what she asks.” My words were swiftly followed by Voxxy’s plate and my own getting loaded with our parts of the casserole. While I was on it, I also put a second serving on Esther’s plate. That left us with an eighth of the total size of the meal.

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Voxxy, despite her minute size, ate the entirety of her serving. Goblins stored excess energy in the pigment that gave them their green colour, rather than fat. A famished member of her species would gradually turn white with remains of green patches all over. Common goblins, that was. No one knew exactly where goblins came from, only that they were present on a vast number of worlds. They were quite prone to mutations that adapted them more to the local environment, so goblins could come in a vast array of small and large differences.

“You really penetrate topics you are interested in, ey, stud?” Voxxy asked.

“I do go deep when it comes to such topics, yes,” I responded with a smirk. “I am very attentive as well, never stopping before I know I have come to know all about it. Water?” I raised a pitcher.

“Yes, please,” Voxxy pushed her empty glass towards me. Esther did the same. I forced myself to eat the rest of the casserole. It was either that or throwing it away.

“You are talkative,” Esther commented on the obvious.

“Ya think?” Voxxy asked, mockingly. It was a bit too sharp for a friendly jab. For the moment, I left my Queen to deal with that as she saw fit.

“Yes,” she responded with simple honesty. Her hand lay on top of her glass, the index finger repeatedly tapping the rim as she sorted her thoughts. “Frankly, I am not a great communicator,” she stated and glanced over in my direction. “I try not to appear rude. Respond in kind… no, sorry. I ask that you respond in kind.”

“Eh, sure, I’ll try,” Voxxy assured flippantly.

Esther scoffed, unhappy with the answer. Non-involvement seemed like a bad strategy, so I lowered my fork and jumped in as a mediator. “Do oblige my Lady, please, she really is trying her best,” I told Voxxy, “and there’s no potential of joining my Anomalia without her approval.”

“…That’s kinda limp-dicked, not gonna lie,” Voxxy responded. “I thought you were the ‘hands-on’ sort.”

Esther suddenly stood up and made her way around the table. She turned Voxxy’s chair towards herself and then grabbed the goblin by the chin. “Is this what you respect?” she asked, while staring the shortstack down, much like I had done on the bench earlier. This was considerably more abrupt. The effect was similar though.

Slowly, Voxxy nodded. With only a gesture, Esther made the engineer stand up. The mustering she had given her earlier was repeated with greater intensity. Esther circled Voxxy, squeezing and grabbing the goblin in whatever ways she wanted. Although there was the element of physical appreciation, I sensed this was more of a hazing.

Esther was definitely growing into her role as my Queen. Experience from the Anomalia Management Class and previous encounters gradually clued her in on how to deal with prospective additions. This was new though. Esther asserting her dominance this blatantly was a deeply intriguing process to follow. If she got a taste for it, I would not mind. Part of the fun of a harem was that my women could live out their kinks with each other. Esther developing a top preference towards other females would fit nicely with her station.

Getting dommed by her was not something I cared for (as an occasional treat it could be interesting). Domming a second woman with her in the future, that was a hot fantasy. Doubly so when Esther then got submissive for me.

“Sit back down,” Esther ordered.

“Alright,” Voxxy responded with an enthusiastic nod. The girl respected willpower, that much was clear by now. They returned to their seats and the conversation carried on in a much more civil tone. “You’re fucking hot.”

By civil I only meant the tone, not the choice of words.

“You meet my Karitas’ standards, candidate Voxxy,” Esther responded. “As for mine, I reserve judgment until a later date. Are you in a rush to join an Anomalia?”

“Honestly, I’m just going with the flow. I arrived here last weekend and I’ve been spending most of my time getting dedicated catch-up classes with the rest of the magically crippled. Pure chance I ran into your big dick King over here.” I waved when I was pointed at. “Well, when he teleported up to me.”

“Well-endowed Karitas tends to involve himself,” Esther responded, crossing her arms under her boobs. Even with both pairs in my field of view, I could not quite decide if Voxxy measured up to her. Clearly, I needed to stack them on top of each other, chest to chest, to make an educated guess. “You failed to answer my question. Are you in a rush to join an Anomalia?”

“Not really. Would you mind if we fucked before I did?”

“Intensely so.”

“Urgh,” Voxxy made her dislike loudly known. “I have to tighten my screws before I get screwed?”

“I demand that it be apparent that you wish to join before you become part of our intimate circle. This is for reasons of personal comfort and general sustaining of good habits.” Esther adjusted her tricorne. “If you wish easy access to sex then-“

“Karitas already riddled me on this, so no, it’s not about just fucking around,” Voxxy interrupted. “Just looks like I’m about as talented as a tortoise when it comes to magic.”

“Turtles are typically among the more magically gifted animals,” I commented.

“I know, I meant that literally.”

“Oh,” I was surprised to such a degree I did not get to chuckle. “Ah, so you don’t think you’ll be able to pull the Anomalia ritual off in the near future?”

“Ye.” Voxxy drummed with both hands on the edge of the table. “Not like I’m really locking in on you already, stud. If first impressions play out nicely, I don’t want to go like six months unfucked because the hot prude here doesn’t let me get stuffed.”

“An arrangement can be struck in such a situation,” Esther assured her and took a sip of water. “To repeat, I need it to be apparent that you truly wish to join. What I will not permit is a casual hook-up. My Karitas will be our Karitas, impatient Voxxy, not the world’s Karitas.”

I washed the rest of the casserole down and let out a relieved, “Aaaaaah,” afterwards. “It is, against my male instincts, agreeable to me that these are the terms struck,” I added to the conversation. “Although I think the occasional bit of fun outside the Anomalia could be on the table?”

“We will contemplate this once the ranks are filled,” Esther stated. “I wish to continue this interview.”

“Oh, it’s an interview now? What do you want to view, hot stuff?” Voxxy winked at my Queen. “You prefer tits or ass?”

“Ass,” Esther responded immediately. “In that binary.”

“I would not dare to proclaim any preference on the glorious female form.” I passed the question back to Voxxy with a raised eyebrow.

“Tits.” The shortstack bounced in her seat. Had she done it a little more intensely, her jiggling breasts would have escaped the confines of her shirt.

“Glad that someone is asking the important questions,” I commented, while following them up and down.

Sadly, that ended when Esther asked her next question. “What are your plans after Welldark?”

Voxxy shrugged. “Got nothing specific for you there. I just wanted to get out of Tezzl. Way too crowded and even as a prodigy engineer, you can’t do much there. I want to see what ridiculous shit I can build with supernatural and enchanted components. So, I guess I would like to have a load of cash as thick as my thighs to build a giant workshop somewhere and tinker all day in the future.”

“Works with my plans,” I said.

“What would those be?”

“Adventurer.”

“Ooohh, sounds interesting!”

“And ill defined,” Esther curbed our enthusiasm. “Although this mutual fluidity may be beneficial.”

“I always love inducing mutual fluidity, hot stuff,” Voxxy flirtatiously said. “What about you, hm? Where do you want to go after we’re done here.”

Esther did not answer, for the same reason she never answered me immediately when I asked something similar. She tried to find something to say, some kind of conclusion, to that question that would satisfy her. Then she said, “I do not know.”

“You do not know?” Voxxy was visibly puzzled, looking between me and my Queen. In her defence, given Esther’s general attitude, her lack of future plans was properly responded to with confusion. “I figured you were the ‘I got it all planned out’ type.”

“I strive to be.”

“I guess we might as well come clean with that early.” I leaned onto the table and spoke a bit more quietly. We were alone by now. Still, I lowered my voice. “Esther and I have rather convoluted pasts that we are not quite comfortable discussing yet... not even with each other. While that is a temporary state, I do guarantee that, at least in my case, things will inevitably get complicated.”

“That sounds fucking rad!” Voxxy declared.

It was at that moment I knew I had to have her.