Ai Love Therapy Ch. 04

"Leave her alone, probably doesn't know what's going on any more than we do," Ari said, though the chastisement ruined somewhat speaking around a mouthful of food. "Vina probably concocted another scheme that'll make her a bucket of tung, so if we all want a cut we'd better shut up, spread our legs and hope we don't run out of ointment before the burning stops."

Ai flinched, realizing avoiding social situations had gotten her in trouble again. Ai knew an indirect rebuke when she heard one, but that didn't stop internal observationing. Safety, being able to run away or hide, possibly needing to fight, these were the typical instincts flooding Earth Ai, but here they were only a small buzzing. Easier they were all women in the cab. Right now, Ai felt internal social awkwardness emerged more from habit and inexperience rather than crippling anxiety, and that caused further introvertion as she sought answers to questions probably never answered in fantasy-dream-world-place.

The carriage got underway with a light jolt, forcing Ai to realize Lollmel was not with them. The speed they moved was not slow, either, as it felt more like the trains in Shanghai rather than some carriage ride. Were magical shock absorbers a thing? Because there was no jostling or bumping, expected from cobbled streets she knew they rode over. It was smooth.

"What is happening?" Ai asked Ari, grasping emotionally towards someone who could help her through this, gesturing all around her. "I don't get any of...this."

It was a loaded question, but Ari took it directly. "Vina is a good Madame, treats the girls better than most and keeps away the worst Johns. However, she likes money. Turns her into a different woman. I have no idea what is up, and I'm not stupid enough to fail realizing this is about you." Ari gave a steady glare towards Ai, causing the purple earther to clench her hands in anxiety. "Anyway, Lollmel told me Vina had a project, and I know what that means." She picked at a ruffle in her bra and grinned without smiling. "We see whether we get a fat pile of tung or we eat thin gruel for the next month."

"Its about one in four that turn profit," Mizi said from her couch, now sitting upside down, her braid piled on the floorboards. "Not so bad when it doesn't. Madame loses money and all us girls tighten belts and loosen clams to catch back up, but last time it worked I bought a solid gold dildo. I think Ari paid for an entire semester, all in one night."

Everyone drifted into silence after that, including Ari after finishing the food. Wheeling next to Ai without saying anything, she gave off an empathy Ai sorely needed. The out-of-world and out-of-her-mind girl appreciated it more than any expression, putting herself through therapy techniques learned over the years to bring anxiety down. A kind of meditation, mostly, but also mixed with thinking through worst-case scenarios in a kind of if I can imagine it happening, it won't happen style utilized for decades to reach balance. Outwardly, she emanated tense violence, like wanting to strangle someone, her hands opening and closing in an odd rhythm, her face in a frown and a small vein growing along her brow as she pushed and pushed to keep everything from overwhelming the balance.

It wasn't long - though Ai wasn't sure entire how long - but no more than an hour later, they arrived to a graceful stop. The carriage door flung open, Vina thrusting her trunk inside with a bugle call loud enough for Boot. "Alright, you degenerates, fall out! These Johns won't service themselves!"

When Ai's ear's stopped ringing, she was already up and halfway to the door. A bit of relief when she noticed the other girls moving in a similar combination of surprise tinged with fear. What's a woman to do when a twenty-foot (6.1 m) yellow and green spotted elephant said to move?

Outside, Ai squinted in the dawn, then choked on a gasp because she determined not being the wide-eyed toddler anymore. By the power of Grayskull, why was everything in this city straight out of the most fantastical dreams?

"Drink it in, can't have you distracted later. It is impressive, though." For a moment, Vina sounded as if the sight brought a new vision of awe for seeing it a thousand thousand times, while Ai experienced her first time.

Calling it a palace compared the Taj Mahal to an ant hill. More in common to Miyazaki's Laputa in scope and elegance. Floating amid the center of six interwoven and slowly rotating differently colored rings rings, each etched with glowing runes, a building of complex beauty shone bright below the crimson morning. In fact, as the sky lacked visible sun across red horizon, the shining building of impossible towers and rotating buttresses might as well be the sun, radiating a bright white light. Knowing something of architecture, Ai only dropped more into awe as she realized parts and techniques not possible with Earth physics. And eventually she stopped trying. In a vague, overall shape, shaped as a large diamond, more crystal than mortar, the style blended the best of European gothic and delicate spires of the middle east. Scaled relative to smaller than one of the floating islands orbiting the center of the city, making it miles wide and triple that in height and depth. It was hard to gain any sort of scope, standing atop an avenue miles away upon a small rise, buildings and more buildings of a menagerie of types and techniques rising around her.

"How did I miss this?" Ai asked, her eyes remaining glued to the monument taking up her her entire view, half expecting a Luck Dragon to fly out at any moment.

"The Sal'an is suspended inside a depression in the middle of the city, a dried up lake we call the Golden Bowl." As Vina said it, Ai understood, the center of the city curving downward into a deep and circular center. The slope gradual, yet the city was a hundred miles long (160 km) and by the time center reached nadir, about two thirds of the magnificent floating edifice hid underneath Ai's current street level. If she were far enough, say on the other side of the city, it could be another building or hidden entirely through cramped ziggurat overtaking most of the city.

Eventually, Vina shook Ai gently and turned her away, all business. "Enough gawking, time for work."

Ai adjusted her bra, because even no-tits get tender if the clothing isn't in just the right place. "I've picked up on what you want me to do, so I guess the question is who do you want me to do?"

"Right idea, but today is more about testing your limits," Vina replied, taking quick strides towards massive wooden doors hanging on an unadorned brick building the size of an airport hanger. Quickly ushering all the girls into the waiting darkness, Vina continued speaking to Ai. "Need to see what you can do before I determine what you will do."

Well, that doesn't sound ominous or anything, Ai thought, shadows beyond the door swallowing them as Vina shut and locked and barred the door behind the cluster of prostitutes. What is a group of prostitutes called? Not a harem...a clam chowder? A gag-le? Ai shook herself. Focus!

"Just four? Well, nothing wrong with going easy for a day."

"Ooo, they look pretty! And smell scrumptious!"

"Small."

Someone muttered, then an orb of light shone over Ari's outstretched hand and floated into rafters, gaining size as it rose. What it illuminated were mostly boxes. Not Raiders level of crates on endless crates, but they stacked into organized rows farther than the light captured. There was a meticulousness to it, each crate neatly situated next to another wooden box with clear black print labeling the contents inside. As if all this space needed was a few line pieces and everything would disappear in a perfect tetris. Though, that is what it must have imitated sometime earlier. Many of those precisely organized crates were shoved away in a hurried jumble, creating a semi circle to give room for three...individuals.

"Not to rush any of you fine ladies, but can we get started? I'm meeting a mare in the Bowl and they get fussy down there unless I clean up strong odors."

The man speaking...well, he was a unicorn anthro. Balancing on hind hooves at eleven feet tall (335 cm), his front legs more long arms with hands. He stood now, but appeared capable to drop on all fours and run like a proper horse. Those arms crossed under a broad chest and abdomen retaining a human shape more than equine barrel - sporting enough slabbed muscle to win Mr. Universe - yet only touches of humanoid molded his horsey face. Enough that it could never pass as a true equine. Like studying a cartoon caricature of a horse, to give it more character and humanity. Bright white fur, with a mane and tail of glistening rainbows shifting in the light and moved as if there were a breeze. His horn was eighteen inches (45 cm), a tall swirled butterscotch soft serve cone form, but rounded and smooth at the tip.

He was also...Ai gulped...hung like a horse. Three feet (91 cm) and thicker than her own arm, very erect and curved enough, if Ai walked forward a bit, she wouldn't need to dip down to lap up a bit of premen drooling to the stone floor from a flared head. She might also get a black eye, because it twitched sharply enough to thwap like a right hook. Aggressively pink was the only color that came to Ai's mind, emerging out of a short prepuce sheath of white fur a few inches from the base, but otherwise more human than animal in appearance.

"Custard," Mizi said flatly, folding her arms under her breasts and glaring.

"Mizi," the manicorn named Custard replied equally flat.

"Do we pick one, like a buffet, or do you just want to stand in a line and bend over?"

When she tried find who spoke in the squeaky, high pitched, sugary and bubbly voice, Ai turned and got a face full of scaled, cherry blossom tits. Sure, maybe not as much volume and mass as Vina's elephant honkers, though proportionally larger on a girl who topped seven feet (213 cm). Beach balls, tipped with mint green nipples. A lizard dragon face with short snout beamed a toothy smile down between cleavage, and Ai stepped back to take in all this woman. Another step back, because this red and pink dragon anthro was as wide as tall, all of it muscles almost bursting out of tight scaled skin. Proportional might describe Custard's muscles, at least appearing like a muscle man past the horse. This girl was if Bane overdosed on Venom, like someone took a stripper body builder and shoved an entire butcher's shop of lean muscle into her, only a pin prick away from exploding. The term in the fetish community back on earth was Hyper Muscle, Ai's fetish obsession for decades since she picked up her first dumbbell.

"Hi! I'm Chastity! Wanna get stuffed with cum?"

"Get stuffed with...oh." Ai looked down at the futanari anthro hyper muscle megaboobed dragon girl. Still flaccid, her cock a thick fatty already and covered in hard emerald scales, sitting between a pair of hips and thighs large enough to apply for statehood. Ai tilted her head and caught a black vulva underneath, so a true futa. The rest of the girl enjoyed all the requisite dragon parts: gargoyle clawed feet, large wings tucked behind her back and a long red tail with a spaded spike on the end. Mostly, her scales were small and rough, like an iguana's. These interspersed with clusters of black spikes and horns around most joints, giving Chastity a fierce visage if she didn't exude perky cheerleader all over. Honestly, Ai wasn't seeing much past the cock and muscles, her own thighs already cold from the sticky damp running down them.

"Madame Vina, you promised."

"Eep," Ai whispered, looking up and feeling her legs give out underneath. The voice hadn't been loud, per say, rather it was a lot. Like the largest set of speakers at a concert turned up to eleven and then someone spoke very quietly into the mic. The speaker sounded careful, as if knowing if she spoke louder the walls would shake. And Ai wasn't arachnophobic, but now was a good time to start.

"This is more of an experiment, so everything is on the house, Lady Cthenna," Vina soothed, still near the door and pulled out that holographic iPad of hers, typing absently. "If my girls can't get you off I'll jump in personally."

Suspended near rafters, over most of the warehouse, was a naked woman's torso. It engulfed the ceiling, though a tiny detached mental voice told Ai this torso was no more than a hundred feet long (60.6 m). Covered in...fur seemed too soft a word. Light and dark brown stripped bristles probably came closer, though the floating magic orb light wasn't bright enough for detailed inspection. Perfectly proportioned as far as female torsos went, probably in the 36F-24-36 (91F-60-91 cm) strike zone. Only, as large as a small building. Every other part of the woman was the terrifying aspects that drove Earth girls into madness.

"Start soon?" Lady Cthenna replied in that same large yet restrained voice, though now Ai could see the dark head of nightmares - a full-on tarantula head - moving its face palps in time with the words. No human arms or legs, yet torso smoothly connected to eight large and equally bristled spider legs spreading to the edges of the building. A bit of thorax hid behind the woman, but otherwise she was a chimeric amalgamation of a headless and paraplegic and Kumonga, the giant spider of a few Godzilla films. Ai also noted a thick African accent, like Zulu or other language more used to talking in nasal tones and clicks.

"Alright, you doxie prosties, listen up!" Vina moved to stand between the groups, back to the Johns while facing the four girls. The others were patiently attentive, yet Ai remained on the floor and attempted to wrangle her anxieties. "Didn't want to say anything because I'm not sure what happens when it gets out, but Ai here has a few interesting racial abilities she's never tried before. They work off sex, or even as simple as an exchange of fluids, like when she drank Ari's milk. Not sure, which is why I gathered some of our more exotic Johns to help. They already agreed to keep quiet over what happens here, but until I've milked this titty dry, you three are going to assist Ai when she gets hired for special projects."

"What kind of special projects?" Mizi asked what they were all thinking, the others giving Ai long looks.

"First one lined up for next week, don't worry about those. Right now, we need to see how much thaumian energy we can stuff inside Ai and what she's able to do with it all."

Despite it all riding on Ai, everyone waited. After a moment, the earther girl realized they waited for her to be on board with all this. To consent, as it were. With a bit of insight, who better would know about the importance of sexual consent than prostitutes? This was obviously put together with Ai at the center point and now that the moment arrived, they needed her a willing participant. Which brought an easing of tension built inside her. This wasn't some kind of rape club.

"Can I walk out right now, if I want?" Ai mumbled, bringing her knees up to her chest and hugging them.

"You better be able to, or else I burn this building to the ground," Ari said, wheeling over and resting a firm hand on Ai's shoulder. The others in the room nodded without hesitating, this wasn't something up for debate. "Is that what you want? I thought this was all moving too fast."

Ai hesitated, thinking it through. She wasn't against having a casual orgy, a disturbing thought, that her inhibitions were not present. It was like thinking about going to eat at a restaurant. Yes, I'll have the double intercourse with a side of BJ, Ai thought ruefully. Extra sauce! She pinched her thigh hard enough to draw blood, wondering if this were all a dream or hallucination. With her mental problems - or at least the mental problems she possessed on earth - it was a probable scenario. She thought about taking them up on the offer. This whole thing looked like a lot of money and effort went into planning it, but she would not be controlled.

Control. That was ultimately what Ai wanted. Sex and masturbation were about controlling her body, controlling her emotions. It was her body, not someone else's. This wasn't about intimacy anymore, at least not in this world. This was about discovering what it meant to be a Lacuna, what ways it will allow her to remain in control. Because it was scary to think of what might happen in the next few hours, yet she remembered the weight of that collar around her neck and lacking control.

I will never be a slave again, Ai thought, gritting her teeth and standing, psyching up to move forward. If I have to screw a thousand monsters, I think I'm ok with that. Shivering, not from the cold, Ai took a few more calming breaths. Besides, growing more confident this is a dream, anyway.

"No anal," Ai stated, looking over at Custard, reading a book while casually keeping himself hard with one hand, speaking to Vina. "Anything in particular you want me to do, or should I just see what parts fit in what holes?"

"Your choice," Vina replied, using her trunk to fix Ai's clothing and hair. "According to the information Lollmel helped me find, Lacunas absorb energy just by being in the same room. One of the reasons I asked for the other girls to join us. I'm thinking the direct approach is the best way, though. Probably start off with a hand job and work your way through the crowd, see what happens."

Ai looked down the barrel of horse cock and nodded to herself, rubbing hands together because this was going to get messy.

********************

Irene never thought five days could pass so quickly.

After The Dinner - as she called it in her head - Irene discovered careful thought put into kidnapping someone from their world and stuffing them inside a faun body without so much as a polite cup of tea. Prince Jeston arranged everything through his seneschal, Monjafar, who relegated Irene's shotgun education. Old and bent and often sinisterly wearing black robes, Irene learned not to like his smooth tongue and subtle manipulations (which still irked Irene to no end: why is he the only faun who gets clothing?). Monjafar ran most domestics in the palace, including the dozens of servants and her unending rotation of tutors.

The faun girl shook herself, falling asleep as the uptight, rail thin woman droned on about all the intricate etiquette that went into Aoir culture. Which, despite currently living in the heart of the culturally diverse and independent city state of Yrlmuh, knowing when to bow and how deeply to a Second Earl, this was more important according to all these fauns. And what did it matter how she present her hooves? If she dropped a pencil and bent to pick it up, she gave the entire room a full coochie salute!

I miss underwear, Irene lamented, fixing her face to at minimum pretend attention, crossing her legs again and retucking the tunic into her crotch on the plush couch in her sitting room. Her outer clothing were variations on a theme at this point. Long tunics reaching mid thigh with a belt at the waist, she wanted to stick with a poncho style but that proved too much clothing for faunish culture. The best she found was an open tunic stopping at the delts and left the sides of her torso open, not covering her lower thighs, some flaps on the front and back end giving her the illusion of modesty. Also, deep V or scoop necks. Cleavage was what she saw looking down, not her hooves. Today's tunic was forest green with gold tassel fringe and a gold chain belt to match.