Hellacious Hospitality Ch. 11

"What you told me to do... what I did... the way she just 'froze'. Did I really do that? I was so frightened of her. I've never seen someone command magic the way she did. Yet, if for a brief moment, she seemed more scared of me. What was that? And how did you know for me to try? Please, tell me!" Her questions came rapid-fire, breathlessly.

"Whoa, slow down. Plenty of time for that later. Shouldn't we tend to your sister, first?" Still cradling Aila in his lap, she was somehow the most peaceful and well-behaved as he'd ever seen her, despite being in what was assuredly intense pain, her wings clearly broken. Despite that, she hadn't screamed or cried even once.

"Oh, her? Not even the worst of spills she's had. Small wonder she didn't end up on her head, like she usually does. If it wasn't for Aunt Ia, she'd have been grounded for good a long time ago. Nice catch, by the way."

"Rara is so mean! Aila good at flying!" She jeeringly stuck her tongue out. Still spirited and stubborn as ever, but her lyrical voice sounded a little - discordant? - in the pain she bravely choked back.

"Yeah, so good you forget to watch where the heck you're going half the time. Alright, up you go. Are we going to have a heckuva story to tell Aunt Ia, this time." She scooped Aila up in her arms.

Benson took the moment to appreciate their sisterly bond. He'd grown up an only child, so couldn't fully relate. How different would things have been, if he had someone to watch his back like that?

"It's because of how you look out for your sister that I got that idea. It's how you described her, um, 'ability'. Primal was the word you used. I felt something like that yesterday, too. From you. Something deep in my bones, something I couldn't rationally explain. The way you looked at me, full of anger and gravity. It was paralyzing."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be, you were just doing what you thought was right. You've been raised well. But when you said that to me, it got the gears spinning in my head. There are myths, legends, about snake women called the Gorgons, who could turn people to stone just by looking at them. A truly horrifying ability to have - and thinking on that now, so sad and lonely also. But I've been learning a lot from you girls over the last couple of weeks, and I've been finding kernels of truth in all those old stories. All I did was put two and two together."

"So you gambled on a fairy tale?"

"If you put it like that, it sounds a bit stupid, doesn't it?"

"Is it so stupid if it works? Maybe once this settles in and stops feeling so surreal, I'll find a reason to feel more mad that you had me risk it all on a hunch and a prayer. But I learned something new about myself today, and the only thing I feel right now is happy. I know I was mad yesterday about, well, all sorts of things. But I get it now, why she's so infatuated with you. If only for a moment, I've finally felt what potential and purpose feel like."

Caeli had slipped behind him sometime in the middle of their conversation, and he didn't even notice until she perched herself over his shoulders. Sliding to the ground behind him, she rested her head on his shoulder, lovingly, but completely exhausted. Whatever magical energy she had left, she poured into him, a soothing warmth from her hands washing over his injured legs and relieving the pain. He reached around to hold her by her narrow shoulders, content to feel her radiance against him.

"Aunt Lessee, please forget what happened yesterday. I was out of line, only thinking about myself. But I think I understand what you're trying to do now. And the thing is, now I want more."

"You really have grown, haven't you? I was so proud to have you stand by my side. But I was also proud that you were able to call me out. I'm sad that I didn't notice that earlier in you. I still remember when you were just an egg. But you're not that anymore, are you? So no, I disagree. Don't deny yourself that voice. You've got a far better intuition than I had at your age. If I may be honest, I'd like to be able to rely on that more. By comparison, sometimes I wonder if I've actually matured at all, or if in the end, I'm the same naive girl I've always been, with her head in the clouds of all her lofty dreams and emotions."

"I... we should be going now. I've kept Sis waiting long enough with all my yammering. I'll be taking her to see Aunt Ia now." Making sure she had a secure hold of Aila, and slithered off towards the elevators, with a haste not borne of urgency. When the doors chimed open, a brief moment of hesitation. "Aunt Lessee, I was happy to fight by your side today as well. And, umm... where are my manners? Benson, right?... Thank you. Alright Aila, we're leaving now."

"Bye, Auntie! Bye-bye, Soso! Hey, why are Rara's eyes wet? Did she get hurt too?" Aila's chirpy voice was silenced by the closing elevator doors.

*****

"You raised them well."

"I can't take that credit. It was a group effort."

"In the same way school assigns group projects, sure? We know there's always the go-getter who does all the work, while the others just ride their coattails to the grade, right?" The analogy drew a completely blank reaction. "Ah, right, I guess you've never attended a human school. At least, not for the homework part. I'm not going to pry any further."

That drew a light giggle, but it was distant, distracted.

"What is it? You're much too hard on yourself, you know? You can't be everything to everyone, you do recognize that?"

"This is more than that, though. I fear this really was all my fault. I tried to take the high ground, to set an example for the girls. But it was my own weakness, my inaction that set that poor girl upon her self-destructive path."

"Hey, hey! There's no way that's true. And even if it was, nobody's responsible for their own destiny but themselves. Luna made her own choices, but now, you've given her a chance to make new ones. That's what I think, anyways. And I think, so does she."

"And there it is. You saved me today, did you know? Saved both of us. I still ask myself what it is I've done to deserve this felicity."

"And there you go, giving me credit again for things I haven't done. How am I supposed to..." He trailed off, realizing that Caeli had fallen fast asleep against his chest. Such a maddeningly infuriating woman, in the best of ways. She was probably right again, somehow.

Gazing upon her peaceful, slumbering form, he started to feel it too. The battle had been drawn out and harrowing at points, and all that adrenaline was finally starting to burn out. His eyelids started to feel heavy. Surely, in a locale fashioned after a high-class hotel, there were more comfortable accommodations than a cold tile floor. But his limbs felt weighted down, unwilling to move from their positions.

The air in his lungs felt thick and sweet enough to choke on. He coughed in an attempt to expel that cloying sensation, but it just crawled deeper down his windpipe. The world around him grew dark, his eyes no longer strong enough to resist the Sandman's call.

*****

"Ugh, finally, I thought the young ones would never leave."

Benson awoke with an unpleasant stickiness in his throat, his mouth dry and parched. He struggled to open his eyes, similarly dry and crusted-over.

Ugh, why such terrible sleep? He hadn't come to in as terrible a state since his last hangover. Normally, in those situations, he'd just roll out of bed and let things sort themselves out. Not a grand strategy, but that was his self- punishment for that stupidity.

Not that that plan would have worked, anyhow. Because as he came to realize, he wasn't laying in a bed. In fact, he wasn't even laying down at all. His arms and legs were numb and unresponsive, but from the cramp in his back, he was pretty sure he was kneeling.

He hazily remembered falling asleep like that, with Caeli propped against his shoulder. Caeli? Where was she? He couldn't feel her weight on his shoulder, nor on his lap. It was unusual for her not to stick around. She knew the way that waking up next to her set off the fire in his loins something fierce.

With a great deal of effort, his eyesight returned to him, but only an unfocused blur.

A pale shape floated just outside the reaches of his vision. Long and lean.

Countless minutes seemed to pass, his senses only barely getting better. He tried to get a better grasp of that shape in front of him. It kept changing subtly, with dark lines criss-crossing it, all just hovering slightly beyond his limited range of perception.

He heard slithering now. Prolonged dragging sounds that oscillated back and forth in winding patterns. Merah? He tried to voice that singular question, but his mouth was too dry, only coming out as the barest of wheezes. No, not her. Too all-encompassing. The sounds came from every which direction.

Move, damnit! He grew frustrated with his body's uncooperativeness. At any other time, that would've been truly worrying, but to his addled brain, merely an idle curiosity to be solved, at whatever pace it felt like.

The air felt heavy and humid. His tongue lapped out reflexively, as if trying to drink from it.

"Oh, awake now, are we? Here, drink up. I always forget how needy you humans are." A vessel was brought to his lips, the sensation of cool, refreshing water splashing up against them. That deep, sultry voice set off some kind of warning in the deep recesses of his mind. Somehow familiar, but in an unwelcome way. With his full wits about him, he might have refused that offering. But like a dry sponge to water, he couldn't stop himself. He drank until he felt he would burst. Only then was his thirst finally quenched.

Even after washing his mouth out with the nearly tasteless liquid, that same sensation of cloying sweetness still clung to his sinuses.

His eyes still tried to focus, adjust. It was dark. Why was it dark? Other than the pale shape before him, everything was shrouded in blackness. No, not black. A deep green. Occasional movement within that darkness opened up holes in the sky the let beams of light stream through, bringing color to the unknown space.

A ray of light moved across the ground in front of him, reflecting brightly off the polished tile. The same polished tile of the hotel lobby. More details around him seemed to shimmer into existence. The shapes of the rubble surrounding him, the aftermath of their big fight with Luna. He hadn't gone anywhere. He was exactly where he remembered falling asleep.

His mind finally seemed to be willing to start putting things together, dehydration no longer overpowering his other senses.

That rasping, slithering sound still continued around him, but there was a disjointedness about it. Not one smooth, drawing motion, but the layering of hundreds of other tiny sounds on top of it. Like rustling. Like leaves.

Now the familiarity of that voice surged to the forefront of his mind. The reason it didn't come sooner was because he'd become conditioned to just ignore it.

"Xochitl?" He tried to stand again, but that's when he realized that his legs were bound. And so were his wrists, tied behind him. He tugged and struggled, to no avail. The bindings were strong. The ones holding his arms pulled back, forcing him to sit more upright. "What is all of this?"

Something slid across his lap, and it belatedly dawned on him that she had filled the room with her vines. The walls, floor, and even ceiling shrouded in her writhing mass. Even the ropes that held him fast.

No longer held to the confines of her enclosure. She was free.

"... Did Caeli let you out of your cage? I'm not sure she'd approve what you've done with the place."

"Ah yes, there's that biting commentary I've come to expect. You could say she let me out, but I don't think that's what she had in mind. I've never felt the need to ask permission, but maybe that's where we don't see eye-to-eye. Not that she's in a position to respond now, even if I were to extend that courtesy."

A wider hole in the canopy of vines opened up to let more light stream through. The haze in the air seemed to clear slightly as well, the full strength of his vision returning to him.

"Caeli!" He struggled against his bindings again. For her sheer amusement, Xochitl slackened them enough to allow him to stand, only to result in him falling flat on his side, when she still had a grip on his ankles. "What are you doing to her?" He growled.

The pale form that hovered before him took shape. Suspended in the air with thick windings of vines at her ankles and wrists, she remained almost motionless. With eyes closed, she still seemed asleep, if not for the undulations of her throat as she was forced to continuously swallow the stream of liquid that pumped unceasingly from the thick vine rammed down her esophagus. Her gulping noises grew louder as she endeavored to keep from drowning in it, but she hit her limit, the clear substance leaking from her cheeks and beginning to trickle down her taut, outstretched body.

Finally relenting, the thick tendril retreated, popping free of her mouth as she spewed up forcefully whatever she was unable to swallow.

"Xo? Why?" She said weakly. Coughing, sputtering.

Xochitl's body emerged from somewhere within the mass of vines, voluptuous as ever, carried aloft as if floating by the tangled creepers that comprised her legs from the knees down. She brushed shoulder-to-shoulder with Caeli, and stroked her cheek possessively. "Since you brought it up earlier, I thought we'd renegotiate my living arrangements. Although, hehe, I've always been more a fan of action over talk." She feigned innocence with her light giggle, but she drew out every word in a way that exhibited raw sexuality, laced with contemptuous venom.

Caeli had her eyes screwed shut and jaw clenched, trying desperately to steel herself against something. Her breathing was labored, her chest swelling heavily with each surging breath drawn through her teeth. Intense redness bloomed across her cheeks. Her hips began to wiggle as thighs rubbed together compulsively.

With a wide, predacious grin, Xochitl lapped at the beading tears on her cheeks.

Caeli's composure faltered as her head drooped, eyes slivering open in a glazed, heavy-lidded expression. Breathing came heavier still, panting loudly and openly. Her tongue flopped out, dribbling into her own cleavage.

"Ah, that expression brings back such memories. You used to share it with me freely. What changed between us, I wonder?" She teased, a hand sliding down her smooth belly that had started to become slick with sweat. Reaching below her navel, that hand slowed, taking more time to pinch and probe her sensitive skin, creeping ever further southward. Each prodding action elicited tiny little squeals and moans, and the panting grew sharper and more rapid. Slender fingers slipped into the waistband of her tight micro-skirt.

"Nguuh. D-don't do this... B-Ben! Don't... don't look at me! Hauuu~" She was barely coherent, her speech slurred in her escalating arousal. As much as she protested, her body had other ideas. Her hardened nipples stood out prominently through her skimpy costume bra.

"Don't you dare lay another finger on her, or -" His words were cut off by choking vines wrapping their way around his mouth, not only silencing him, but preventing him from turning away.

"Or you'll what? You're in no position to make demands, if you haven't noticed. And I really do insist you enjoy the whole show. I'm doing this for your benefit. I don't think you've been made to appreciate just what exactly your girlfriend is, and that's something that needs rectifying."

Xochitl's patience for gentle foreplay wore thin as her words grew more aggressive. Writhing tendrils took hold of Caeli's already tattered skirt and stockings, and tore them to shreds, scraps of fabric falling away from her body like confetti. Love juices unmistakably slicked her inner thighs, her pussy lips puckering and gaping, hungering for an insertion to fill them up.

"Haaaah!" She exhaled sharply. "No, no, no!" She resisted, even as her hips bucked involuntarily at the way her clitoris was being teased expertly by the frisky vines.

Meanwhile, Xochitl had her main attentions northward again as she circled like a ravenous hyena, planning her angle of attack. Coming up behind her, she nipped at her earlobe playfully, while her hands encircled that perky, full bust. She squeezed them firmly, toying with that supple softness and tugging roughly at their distended peaks, inspiring more shrill whimpers. Fingers slid fully beneath her bra, pushing away and tearing it free with the same casual disdain as the discarded skirt.

She licked her lips, savoring the sight of Caeli's fully nude form. "What say you to making up for lost time?" She asked rhetorically, while retracting the leafy coverings on her own enormous breasts. Puffy nipples dribbled forth streams of sticky, clear sap lewdly.

Cradling Caeli's prone body in her arms, she pulled her tightly against her bosom, drawing her into a lusty, deep-throated kiss.

Benson was forced to helplessly observe that sight of unparalleled eroticism full of burning anger and boiling, animalistic lust, in a combination that threatened to explode.

===================

Post-script:

Just wanted to throw a last little word in before you hear from me again in the next chapter. A not-insignficant part of my inspiration for writing this story was having watched harem anime like Monster Musume and many others that came before, and since, and being, shall we say, "underwhelmed". I like my cute, jiggly girls as much as the rest of you, but honestly, my favorite part of those series are in the early chapters where the couples are just trying to sort out their relationships, and the drama is at full blast.

Too easily and too quickly, they settle into their patterns where the real emotional drama is settled, and the only thing left is hijinks as the girls all wrestle for their turns with their man. That sort of thing is boring and formulaic to me. Just transparent wish fulfillment. Nothing earned.

That mentality's where I'm coming from with this series. I want the relationships to feel real and meaningful, and not just a vehicle for jealousy-fueled slapstick. More girls means more loving, but also more potential for irreconcilable conflicts. So as the heat cranks up, and the "perfect" relationships start showing their cracks, I just want to assure you all that it's all part of the plan.

What's a journey, without a few bumps and bruises along the way? The effort makes the destination all the more rewarding.