All for a Cup of Coffee

I headed through and out to the bar. The noise of the room, despite this world being almost entirely different, was astoundingly similar to that of a busy dining hall back home. The clack of spoons on bowls and the chatter of talk between bites. The noise blended together into a sound I was entirely familiar with. However the noise quickly lowered as all the different women gathered in the High-Tail turned to look at me as I got up on the bar.

As tall as I was, standing on the bar might've been overkill to make sure everyone could see me. I had to stoop a bit to keep from banging my head. Nevertheless, I waved my hand and said, "Hello! I believe you've all heard or seen me already. My name is Harrold Yeont and I'm the one who's been cooking all the delicious food the last couple of days."

The room broke into raucous cheers and whoops. Plenty of whistles and lewd comments were thrown around as well and I smiled at all of it. I gave them a second before patting the air to get them to quiet back down.

"If you haven't heard, I'm not from around here. You could say I've just kind of dropped in. Cherry's been good to me though and I've been trying my best to help her out. To that end, I've been cooking meals for everyone who comes in. Guess you all like it." I said and had to endure another long bout of cheering before I could continue. "But we've been running ragged trying to make it work. As you all can tell we don't exactly have enough space. Hell, we don't even have enough bowls and plates. But we're going to make it work and to that end, we're going to have to ask you all to wait while I help her sort this out. The High-Tail is going to close for a few days while we fix things up and I hire some help."

The gasps and conversation spiked at that. Women looked at each other and at me in surprise and shock. There was a lot of annoyance too as I could tell many of them were eager to have more of my food. Nobody wanted to be told that I was going to stop cooking for a while until we could get it better organized.

"Look, we have to do this if we're going to keep this up! So please just work with me here. I appreciate how much you all love what I cook and I want to cook more! Enjoy your dessert and we'll let you know when we're open again." I said with a smile. I hopped off the bar and the room filled with hurried and excited conversation again.

Cherry was leaning in the doorway, her eyes fixed on me and her arms crossed. She frowned and said, "You could've told me you were going to close my bar for a while!"

I pulled her back into the kitchen and to what little muffling the swinging doors offered. I kissed her and said, "Hey, might not be that long. We might be able to hash everything out tomorrow and be open again the day after."

That seemed to mollify her and she kissed me back, "Alright, alright. Fine. I can't believe I'm letting a man run my bar! Who would've thought of it? A man actually doing hard work!"

She let out a sharp laugh and kissed me again. I just smiled and kissed her back. This reversed irony was never going to stop smacking me around.

--- Chapter 4 : Mustard Fried Chicken ---

The next morning, Cherry and I both slept in late. With the doors of the High-Tail staying closed and locked until we said otherwise, it was a good chance to rest up. Not to mention I hadn't had a lick of coffee in days and waking up early was getting harder without it. Tea just didn't have the same kick...

Both of us dragged out of bed as the sun rose, though Cherry with some reluctance because she wanted me to fuck her again. Goddamn I'm really gonna have to better spread out the fucking and not hump myself raw in one night again. I made up for it by eating her out until she squealed.

After the usual morning rituals were observed, we headed down to the kitchen and I cooked us a breakfast of spiced potatoes and sausage. Once Cherry and I had food, we sat at the bar and talked. She didn't understand why I wanted to upend her entire tavern business and what she was doing. I tried to explain the concept of capitalism and business growth to her. That a restaurant as successful as this could easily double its prices, move locations, and keep growing to serve more people and earn more money. She just didn't get why. She owned this building and made enough money. With me here she made more money than she had ever expected. Now I was telling her we should change everything so she could make even more and she was scared it wouldn't work.

"Look. What if you had charged double the price last night? Two gold per meal instead?" I asked her.

"Well they probably would've all paid it. I think." She admitted.

"So why didn't you?" I said and she just stared flatly at me. I jabbed a fork at her and said, "That right there is why we should do this."

"Okay, sure. I could raise my prices. But how can you know that all these changes will work? You're talking about hiring people and making a menu and making people tell us the day before they want to come eat here. It's all too much!" Cherry shook her head, her ears and tail drooping from her emotion.

I rubbed at my face and said, "I know it will work. There is a chef in my world who's seen as a savant of this stuff. Famous the world over doing this kind of stuff and if you think I'm a good chef, he would make your head explode."

"Why would I want my head to explode?!" Cherry squeaked.

"No, no. Ugh. Damn it." I cursed and tried to figure out how I could explain the concept of Gordon Ramsey to her. I leaned forward on the bar, staring at my mostly empty plate, and said, "Think about how good of a chef I am. How much more I know about cooking than you."

"I'm aware." Cherry said with a small smile.

"This guy knows that much more about all this than I do. I've had the privilege to meet him a couple of times and he is undeniably the best in my entire world at being a chef and running a restaurant." I said excitedly. Maybe Ramsey's personality was more of a television persona than most people thought, but I had met the guy. He wasn't just for show, he actually did know his stuff when it came to how you ran a restaurant. I got to pick his brain one time and his breadth of knowledge was impressive. I'd treasured every bit of knowledge he'd shared with me ever since.

Cherry gawked and said, "The most famous chef in all your world is a man? He's a man and he's that amazing at this? Wow..."

"I know. So trust me when I tell you this will all work. This is the kind of stuff he teaches people and if they listen, they never fail." I reassured her again.

"Okay. Alright. But I don't want to move. We can do all the other things. We can make a menu and serve different stuff, but I want to stay here." Cherry said, "It is my home after all."

I nodded and agreed. We could make a menu, hire some help, and expand her business as it was. So that was what we set about doing.

For the rest of the day, we worked on ideas about how we wanted to set up the main area, what we wanted on the menu, and what changes needed to be made to the kitchen. That last one in particular ran into the most roadblocks. Building a modern kitchen was practically impossible. Sheet metal, warm lamps for resting food, and freezers were impossible. I asked about the magic and what could be used but she insisted that it would cost so much to try and make an entire room get down below freezing, and it would require a mage to constantly be recharging the magical runes. The one in her fridge apparently required her to pay a local mage to sort of 'refill' it every few days. The same went for the runes she had for hot water upstairs and anything else I wanted to add.

That certainly cut down on my options but I was far from defeated. I had some ideas to tackle all these problems. Running a restaurant with only fresh ingredients was the core concept for many high-end places, and the dishes I made would just have to work within the bounds of what I had access to. The interior of the kitchen could be done in an efficient way with just wood provided I cleaned it fastidiously. This was an exciting challenge for me because it felt like I was getting to create my very own dream restaurant from the ground up.

Cherry was mostly enchanted by the idea of being the most popular location in town. The High-Tail had never struggled but it also didn't really stand out at all.

That first day went by with little more than notes taken and the tables pushed out of the middle of the main room. We also had to talk a few annoyed customers away from the door. By a few I mean probably a hundred hungry and annoyed women that wanted my cooking. I insisted the High-Tail was in no state for customers to come in but they wouldn't accept no. In the end I decided to put the remaining ingredients in the kitchen to work and whipped up a few baskets of something we could just hand out at the door. Breaded mustard chicken legs, wings, breasts, and thighs. Cherry didn't actually have mustard, but she had some ground mustard powder and I worked it all out from there. The ladies left happy with food in hand.

The next day Cherry and I spent dismantling half the kitchen and the bar. We had a rather hefty sum of money to work with but I didn't dare waste any of it on hiring help to do the manual work since we would need enough to buy all the new stuff and still restock the kitchen afterward. So we rolled up our sleeves, metaphorically for me since my new outfit was only a vest and shorts, and did it ourselves.

Cherry turned out to be a surprisingly proficient carpenter and when I asked her about it, she explained that she had built all her furniture herself. She had grown up as the daughter of a talented furniture saleswoman and had apprenticed with her mother before deciding she wanted to open her own tavern.

So with her knowledge it was easy to get started. She knew where to go to buy a large amount of planks and logs we could use. We managed to build a few extra tables and chairs, we rebuilt the bar along another side of the room so the kitchen door wasn't behind it anymore, and we also built a whole new setup both behind and beneath the new bar for glasses, liquor bottles, and kegs. Cherry hadn't done that much bartending in her time here but she was eager to try.

The kitchen got redone. Now the old table filling the middle of the room had been rebuilt as a counter that filled up much more of the center with shelves and drawers all around it. It was shaped like a horseshoe opening at the swinging doors so anyone coming to deliver food could collect it from any part of the kitchen without interrupting the chef. It would be a tight fit but professional kitchens often were.

We also tore out the old shelving, the cookpot and the open chimney. That last one just got boarded over and hidden because neither of us wanted to deal with tearing out the entire chimney. We ended up turning the entire wall into new cabinets and a pantry. The wall with the ovens and the fridge couldn't be so easily changed so I suggested we just squeeze in some extra hooks above them to hang pots and pans from.

It took us ten days of hard work in total. In that time the stream of women eagerly awaiting our reopening never slowed or stopped. At each mealtime, a gaggle of them showed up outside the High-Tail to ask if we were serving yet. Also in those ten days, I fucked Cherry every evening. I didn't go overboard, nor let my lust run away with me again. It helped that I was physically tired every evening so the sex was, while passionate, much more subdued in comparison to the first time. Well... the first time I remember. Cherry was just ecstatic having regular sex, as she insisted getting it each night was like a dream to any woman. To make all that better, my new clothes were finished in that time and I got to show off a bit for Cherry in the tight little hammock she bought me. The new clothes were damn comfortable too. The shorts hugged my package just right and the vest left much of my chest open to the air and it kept me cool while I worked. I thought I'd have to beat Cherry off with a stick the first time I wore it. She immediately went and ordered me a second set in different colors.

All that was left was to hire some help. Cherry had the idea to open the High-Tail for drinks and snacks. That would bring in quite the crowd and we could ask them all if anyone wanted to work here. That was not a way I wanted to do this because it didn't guarantee there would even be a cook amongst them. Ideally, I would've wanted to take out an ad for the job, conduct a few days of phone interviews and narrow down the candidates to a couple dozen in person interviews, but I had to remember where I was. So I figured the next best thing would be a bombastic assault on the problem. So I got up from the table where I was looking over the boards cherry was painting with each meal's menu to hang on the wall. I stretched and headed for the front door.

"Where are you going?" She asked, looking up from where she was painting out the word 'Pancakes' with a price next to it.

"To find myself an assistant!" I said with a laugh and I opened the front door.

The sun was starting to descend and the sky was blazing a gorgeous orange. It was dinner time and there was the usual gang of women outside the door hoping we would be open today. When I appeared, they all gasped and rushed towards me.

"Whoa! Whoa. Not quite, ladies. I'm sorry but we have one more thing to take care of and we'll be open for breakfast tomorrow." I said, holding my hands up to hopefully get them to stand back. It was like trying to hold back the ocean and all the gorgeous bodies pressed it around me, hands rubbing and groping eagerly. I sighed and said, "I'm going to regret saying this, but I'm looking to hire someone to help in my kitchen."

All of them squealed in joy and began yammering at once. I waved my arms and yelled over them, "If you want the job, please come with me to the market center! I'm going to be choosing the best one for the job there!"

Then I pushed and slid trough the mass of eager women. None of them had any shame about continuing to press themselves against me or grab at my body. At some point this was going to be normal and I wasn't going to get excited by dozens of feminine hands grabbing at my arms and chest and ass and dick. That day was going to be a boring one, I just knew it.

By the time I made it to the market, I swear I had half the town following me. Word had spread immensely quickly that the handsome and talented male chef was looking for help. I bet the showier clothes weren't helping matters either. It was quite obvious that they all saw this as an opening to get close to me and try to fuck me. It was still a secret to everyone but Cherry that I could fuck more than once a week, and they all thought I was just giving it to her each week, with the exception of trading it to shop owners on occasion for free goods. I still had only done that once with Francisca but I really needed to branch out. I could probably get some damn good stuff...

At the center of the market, I found a crate beside one of the stands and dragged it over towards the middle. The crowd of women pressed in as I stood up on it. I didn't need it because I was already taller than almost all of them, but an extra two feet made me that much more visible to those further away.

I raised my hands and all the women slowly quieted. "Hello everyone. If you haven't had the chance to meet me or you haven't come by the High-Tail yet, my name is Harrold Yeont. I'm currently staying with Cherry at the High-Tail and I'm working as her new chef. We've spent the last two weeks working on the business and have a whole menu of new meals for everyone to try. But to make all this work I will need some help."

The women began to yell and holler. They waved their arms and wings. They shook their tails and hopped up and down. It was like I was an instant celebrity to all of them and they were the most rabid of fans. It took me another minute to get them to quiet down enough for me to yell over them again.

"Now I'm not taking just anyone! I have two requirements for my assistant!" I yelled.

"Big tits!" A horned cow-woman standing nearby said, heaving her own massive chest up with strong hands.

I smiled and pointed at her, "Close! I certainly wouldn't say no!" Everyone laughed at that.

"A sweet ass!" A shapely and nude cat woman said, turning and shaking her furry brown ass in my direction.

"Also good, but no. To work in my kitchen, you must have a good sense of smell, and you must be a mage!" I said loudly. The first was a necessity for anyone that wanted to cook at all and from it alone, anyone could cultivate a skill with food. The second was my own curiosity and greed. I wanted to know how common mages were and how willing one might be to work a rather mundane job.

Much of the crowd groaned and slumped in disappointment. Many started to walk away. Plenty stayed out of curiosity and maybe a dozen still had their hands raised. I looked around and appraised my selection. A few dog women like Cherry, a few cat woman, and a lamia among others. That made sense because all those animals tended to have great senses of smell. But one particular woman squealed and bounced up and down even more excitedly than anyone else. She waved her arms wildly as though I wouldn't see her through the throng of people. That was hardly a problem because she was nearly a tall as me and built like a statue that had been juicing on some hella strong roids. Round, fluffy ears rose from the top of her head like those of a bear. She had thick chestnut fur growing in a collar around her neck and shoulders, over her head, and down between her breasts and more thinly over her belly. The fur spread down her back and to her hips, around her legs, and to the large paws that she had for feet. All she wore at the moment was a pair of worn and patched shorts.

"Please! I can do that! I can smell really good and I can use magic!" She exclaimed, her muscular arms still waving in the air.

The rest of the women near the rowdy bear-woman scooted away from her and eyed her in annoyance.

"What's your name?" I asked her.

She barreled forward, knocking people aside before stopping right before me. People grumbled and protested her passage but were forced to make way. There was hardly a single woman large enough to stop her. Her hands clasped before her immense chest and her eyes were sparkling up at me as she said, "I'm Bernadette! My friends call me Berry!"

"Of course you are." I held back my laughter at Berry the Bear and said, "Do you have any experience cooking?"

"My ma and I cook stuff sometimes at home. I know how to make stew!" She said excitedly.

Something in that piqued my curiosity and I asked the tall, buff, statuesque amazonian woman how old she was. She looked like she ought to be a late twenties or early thirties body builder with the way the muscles rippled on her arms and the way her shoulders bulged with strength.

"I'm seventeen!" She exclaimed and my mouth fell open wide.

"Holy fuck, you are huge for a teenager!" I exclaimed.

She laughed and blushed, scratching at her ears, "Yeah, I guess I kinda am! Ma feeds me well I guess."

Seventeen... I scratched at my chin as I thought about it. Yes. A woman just come into adulthood would be perfect. She likely would be easy to teach and was obviously excited about it. Having someone that could probably carry around entire barrels of potatoes under one arm would not go unappreciated. My only concern was how, with her muscles and rather ample assets, she would handle the more delicate and detailed parts of recipes. But I had seen stranger trainees work their way to line cook and succeed well enough. I guess in this world a young woman training under me would be an apprentice? Yeah, I liked that. A young apprentice of my own.