Swords, Sorcery, and Sex in the World of Greyhawk - Chapter 4 - Part 4

Chapter 4: Transformations - Part 4

That evening, Erica woke with a start. Since Maria had moved into Casmir's lean-to she'd slept alone, but now someone was in the lean-to with her! She opened her mouth to scream but it only came out as a muffled yelp when a strong hand came down to cover it.

"Shhh..." It was Cheven's voice!

What was he doing here? Rape?! She should scream for help, she should knee him the balls, she should - Erica's mind whirled in panic, leaving her unable to do any of those things.

"Shhh. Keep it down." He whispered into her ear.

She lay helpless, trying to force herself to speak, but no matter how hard she tried, she could only squeak into his palm.

"That's a girl. It's just me, just your friend Cheven, right?" He pulled his hand away slowly, ready to clamp it back down if she tried to scream.

Erica jerked away from his hands, sitting up and clutching her knees to her breast.

"I thought you might be lonely. What with Mrena sleeping in Casmir's cover and all." She could see the grin on his face.

"You..." She whispered. Why was she whispering, she thought, I should call for help and have Peter beat the crap out of this guy. But as she thought that, he leaned back, spreading his hands disarmingly.

"Hear that?" He cupped one hand around his ear.

Erica could hear the muted sounds of Maria and Casmir fucking. From the timing of their voices, it sounded like Casmir was doing her in slow thrusts, each one hitting deep and making her grunt. Her nipples popped automatically at the image and her mouth felt dry as she stared at Cheven.

"Isn't fair, is it? That they get all the fun?" He asked, careful not to scare her.

"I... I think you should go." She managed to say.

"Mrena loves it, doesn't she." Cheven mused softly, as if he hadn't heard. "Casmir sure gives it to her. He says she has the best tits he's ever grabbed. Soft and juicy and..." He said, trying to get a rise out of her.

"You need to go." Erica said more emphatically.

"But me, I bet you've got an even better pair under that..."

"Get out or I'll scream." She interrupted him. Now that she thought he wasn't going to rape her, Erica's confidence was returning.

"Okay, okay. Maybe tonight's a bad night, so I'll come back another time." He gave in easily, nodding her a good-night and left.

Erica watched as he rose and slipped out of the lean-to with a graceful twist of his body. He moved noiselessly, like a ghost, and slipped out of view. Erica stayed huddled until she was sure he'd gone, then she lay down again, thinking.

She wasn't opposed to hooking up with Cheven for a night, at least not in theory. The problem would be the next morning, she decided, trying to predict how the others would react and not coming up with anything positive. She wasn't ready to be known as "Cheven's girl" - it'd be a pain if he tried to get possessive, and who knows what the others' jealousy would do. The possibility that the other men might not be jealous of Cheven for banging her never even entered her mind.

She'd have to live like a nun...or she could hook up with all of them, she realized. That'd be a hell of a way to deal with jealousy, and she'd be queen of the camp in no time. But all six guys? Cheven might turn out to be good in the sack, and she could pretend with Ademic and Steve easily enough, but the rest of them, well, she'd have to have a guaranteed return before she slept with them.

Erica regarded decisions about who to sleep with the same way Maria looked at cash flow. An entry here would change an account there, different entries would affect different accounts, and the only thing that mattered was the bottom line.

Her mom had died when she was seven. She'd grown up with only her politician father, a big wheel in the North Carolina state legislature, and like a coaches' daughter allowed on the sidelines, she appeared with him wherever he went. She'd watched him use sexual partners for his own satisfaction, and saw no reason why she shouldn't do the same. Looking back on her childhood, she later realized that he kept her close for photo ops and voter appeal, not because he wanted to watch her, but ironically, that discovery only made her want to imitate his ability to manipulate people even more.

She'd studied him, learning how to lie with a straight face, how to find people's weaknesses, and how to use them. For her, convincing Peter to carry their slag had been child's play. Taunting Maria had been an unforgivable sign of weakness, and she'd worked extra hard to recover, gaining Maria's confidence with flattery and attention. Ashley's ego was they key to controlling her; she still didn't have a handle on Mickey, but the insipid little red-head was so wishy-washy she'd do whatever everyone else did.

Sex does funny things, though, as she herself had discovered when Maria made her announcement, and she decided that the safest thing would be teasing the guys just enough to hold their interest but not letting them touch.

---

One morning after washing the dishes, the three girls had headed into the outer tunnels to look for food. Since the day Maria was attacked by the meazel, they tended to stay together unless they were very close to camp. They had already picked clean the tunnel they were in, walking to where it opened up into a rocky cavern. Albino crawdads lived in the creek that ran through it, and the men were always happy for a little meat.

"Do you guys ever wonder how all this is happening?" Mickey asked the other two as they walked. Erica shrugged; she wasn't given to pondering the meaning of life, she just took what she could get out of her situation. Ashley, though, looked pensive.

"We may be in an alternate universe." She said finally.

"What, like we're in an X-files episode?" Erica looked dubious.

"It's just a theory, alright? This whole universe..." She said, waving her hands encompassingly,"... is a bubble that expanded from a...cosmic foam, just like our universe is."

"A bubble? From the cosmic foam?" Erica visualized a bubble bath, and she couldn't connect that to the 'universe.' It did make her nostalgic for a hot bath, though. With lots of bubbles. And a frozen daquiri. And a cute guy waiting to give her a massage afterwards.

"So this universe could just go 'pop'?" Mickey interrupted her daydream, concerned.

"Well, sure. On a cosmic time scale. In, like, a trillion years."

"Oh."

"So why is all this freaky shit happening?" Erica asked, curious.

"The theory is...depending on how time happens during the first stages of the bubble's expansion, the rules of physics could be totally different in each universe."

"You mean, like, no gravity?" Erica asked, letting the complicated parts of the explanation go without comment.

"Sure. Or magic." Ashley shrugged.

"What do you mean, 'time happens'?" Mickey was still trying to understand.

"Time is a dimension, right? So it can't exist before the universe. The pace of expansion isn't really time, it's more like a sequence. Time as we know it is a function of what sequence the expansion happens in."

"Huh." Mickey fell silent.

"So were you an astronomy major?" Erica asked.

"No, math."

"Math? So how come you know all that stuff."

"It's all math - all of it." Ashley said proudly.

"Whatever." Erica replied, looking away and rolling her eyes.

---

CONTENT TO BE ADDED: MICKEY GOES LOOKING FOR POM-POM ENDS UP MEETING ONE OF THE KITH, AND SCREWING IT.

Afterwards, Mickey stared at her reflection in the water. She didn't seem any different, she thought - same turned up nose, same freckled face. The girl she saw in the water didn't look like she'd just been fucked - mated with, she hastily thought - a dog. Noticing the mess her hair was in, she wet her hands and tried to smooth it down. Running her fingers down the back she discovered that the kith's semen had dried, trapping her hair into gluey clumps. She tried to clean it with her fingers but only managed to spread it around more widely.

Her movements grew more frantic - she had to get it off. It marked her. It said she wasn't human any more - it said she was a doggy bitch. Her hands shook and her eyes watered. She had to get it off - she couldn't be human again until was gone. As hard as she tried, though, she couldn't get rid of it, only spread the tangy smell to her fingers as well. It stayed with her, like a brand carved into her flesh. Staring down at her quivering hands, the enormity of what just happened finally broke through her subconscious barriers, leaving her sobbing on the cave floor, chest heaving as she gasped for breath between her tears.

---

"Um...Casmir, sir?" Mickey asked on her return to camp, clasping her hands tightly to keep them from trembling.

"Yes, Milka?" He turned from the rock face, holding the pick easily in one hand and wiping the sweat from his brow with the other, leaving another streak of rock dust on his dirty forehead.

"I..."

"What is--"

"I saw a Kith." Mickey blurted out. "Out there. In the caves..." She pointed as best she could.

"Hold, girl." Casmir interrupted, face clouding. "Ye saw a Kith? How do you know?"

"I mean..." Mickey froze, not knowing what to say. She couldn't reveal that she'd felt it in the creature's mind. They might ask questions...she didn't want to answer.

"What did it look like?" Wenzel interjected, misinterpreting the confusion on her face.

"A bipedal canine, with..." She replied with a rush of relief.

"A what?" Cheven asked.

"A wolf. But it walked on two legs." She said, forcing herself to use words they would know.

"That's Kith alright." Casmir's face was grim. The other diggers clustered around.

"We have to leave now." Wenzel said, concerned.

"No, we'll wait until tomorrow." Casmir said, shaking his head.

"But..."

"It must not have seen Mickey. If it had it wouldn't have let her come back." Casmir said. Mickey stared at the ground and guilt filled her chest.

"Maybe it followed her back to camp then went to get his friends." Peter said.

"Kith aren't that intelligent. If it saw her it would have jumped her right then." Casmir replied confidently.

But it did jump me, Mickey thought silently. It rode me, too.

"We pack up today, get a good sleep, then leave first thing tomorrow." Casmir continued, unaware of Mickey's secret. Wenzel and the others looked skeptical, but they turned away to begin packing.

Unlike the trip out, they wouldn't be able to load everything onto the sledges, because they were heavily loaded with ore.

Continued in Chapter 5

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