Testing My Luck in the New World

The early morning sun was in full bloom once more. A wind so delectably gentle caressed the nape of my sweat-drenched neck as I watched the thousands of leaves in the forest behind our cabin rustle to the sound of a new day. Here in this little plot of land nestled between a pair of mountains and a sprawling field of grass, we were all alone.

            As fun as the idea of kicking back and enjoying the charming scenery was, idleness was the furthest thing from my mind. Taking in the pleasure of this beautiful fantasy world’s picturesque façade was not my intention in the slightest. It was merely a benefit to my new daily routine.

            Wiping the sweat from my brow, I focused on my HUD and my health, mana and stamina bars all appeared. While I had enjoyed a good bout of morning exercises and a not-too-long run, my stamina bar had already refilled itself completely. I wasn’t tired or fatigued in the least. The sweat, in part, was merely a by-product of the lingering, pleasant twitching of my muscles as they reveled in their new-found strength. But the main reason why my shirt and the edges of my hair were now damp, was because I had been testing the limits of my magic for the last hour or so. I hadn’t been keeping track of how many Fire Ball spells I’d cast at the side of the mountain since I started, but their heat hadn’t faded fast enough to leave me unaffected.

            Because that particular spell is the one that’s received the most use since I learned it, I wasn’t training it, per se. I was using my familiarity with it to aid in the testing of another spell called Dimensional Step, a teleportation spell of sorts that opens a doorway linking me to a desired location. It was this very effect that I was playing with.

            One night, late, late into the moon’s slow jaunt through the sky, I woke with an urgent need that had to be taken care of. This was fine. Normal, even. The problem was that I need to get up, open the door to our little cabin in the middle of nowhere hoping the creek it would inevitably make wouldn’t rouse the beauty sleeping beside me and that I would survive the trip to my much-needed privacy. I’d had a lot to drink at dinner, so this had to happen. So, I decided on using my magic for this exceedingly mundane task, but as one could imagine, it caused another problem. Dimensional Step creates light when the portal appears.

            Stuck in a three-way split of risks being the noisy door alerting the already extremely sensitive ears of the girl sharing my bed, the magical light of my spell that I then decided was needlessly obnoxious and, of course, ignoring the call of nature, I came up with a little idea I think I otherwise wouldn’t have considered. That being: why not see if I can make the portal smaller?

            Simple, I know and I’m sure I could come up with any number of other solutions now that I was awake, but my half-asleep self was not so intelligent. How he managed to come up with the idea he did and test it out, I couldn’t say, but it worked. After a little trial and error, he managed to figure out that all he needed to do was focus on how large he wanted the door and will its size to change before it actually took shape. This allowed him, me, to slip out of the cabin unnoticed by minimalizing the light it created.

            Yes. That is correct. I learned a new way to use my spell because I had to take a leak.

            The problem was solved, the call of nature answered and, in sleepy me’s truest form, I still ended up waking the girl when I stupidly teleported back into the cabin, as the spell’s light appears on both ends. Thankfully, she found it amusing and sleepily cooed me back to bed.

            Anyways, back to today’s training.

            I was making use of this new trick by having the portal take shape in all sorts of sizes and thanks to this, I found there were a few limitations to it. It cannot get any bigger than the default size, but I can make it about as small as an affle, this world’s equivalent to an apple. Likewise, I can’t change the base, rectangular shape to it at all. What I can do, however, is practice casting the spell faster.

            The Dimensional Step spell takes a great deal of concentration to it, as one mis-placed thought mid-way through the portal’s formation could send you somewhere you don’t want to go. But because of the Memorization trait I had gifting me a perfect memory, using the spell was exceptionally easy thanks to how clearly I could remember the destination. The change in size just needed to be an afterthought.

            It was thanks to this discovery that I found that I could also decrease the size of the Fire Ball spell as well. But aside from the smaller mana cost the smaller versions of the spell incurred, the only real benefit was that it was less destructive when the ball splashed against the mountain’s face. I’d already cleared out anything burnable where I was aiming, but this practice was meant to help me control it better so I could make use of it outside of combat, such as using it to light a campfire to cook by. The first time I tried using the spell for that, we learned the hard way the concussive force of the spell could easily scatter logs. Who knew?

            Several new fires were made, quickly put out and lessons were learned. Not just by me, though. My lovely companion made it a habit to ready us some water whenever it came time to train.

            After my last Fire Ball, a fallen branch snapped underfoot somewhere in the forest and I turned to find Yua, a radiantly beautiful cat girl, stepping out from the trees. The pointed ears resting atop her chestnut hair flicked about, possibly curious about why I’d stopped my spellcasting early today, but her tail held no such concerns as it carelessly waved about through the air.

            As if these fantastical features weren’t enough, when I saw her approach and saw that the jog she’d just finished had left the cleavage poking out of her loose-fit shirt drenched in sweat and her shorts she wore were clinging just a little more snug than they were when we started, I felt myself heat up for reasons completely outside of magic.

            What really caught the eye, though, was the thick wooden pole she carried over her shoulders with two water buckets on either end. Strong as she was, she carried it effortlessly and with so much ease that not only did the water in the buckets not splash about, but that her ample breasts barely jiggled as she moved. And being that I was well aware of the fact that she quite literally did not own a bra, I felt this feat of hers was actually impressive.

            When she caught me looking, one of her trade-marked loving smiles spread across her peachy lips. She didn’t look to be exerting herself at all, but I dashed to her and pulled the pole and buckets off her shoulders.

            “Alex?” she said, her ears giving a confused flick. “What are you…?”

 

 

            Before she could say another word, I set the buckets down with much less care than she’d shown them and pulled her into a tight embrace. She giggled at the suddenness of it, but wrapped her arms ‘round my neck all the same as I pressed my lips to hers.

            “What was that for?” she said, smiling as she brushed my bangs off my forehead.

            “You cant’ go walking around looking like that and expect me to not jump on you.”

            “Hehehe. I meant about the buckets.”

            “Oh? Easy. I told you, you don’t have to go out of your way to collect water anymore.”

            The river the water was sourced from was a little bonus that we’d found one day as we took a little stroll together through the forest. Maybe a third of a mile in through the trees and just around the base of the mountain, it was quite the trip just for water. And it was a trip neither of us had to make anymore.

            Before we fled the city we met in, I’d bought myself several spell books, both because their contents sounded useful and because, well, I really wanted to learn more magic. Thanks again to my perfect memory, about a week into our self-imposed isolation, I decided to sit down and crack open those books only to find that I was correct in assuming my Memorization trait allowed me to almost instantly memorize the entire spell, a feat that takes a normal Mage at least a month of hard, diligent work to do. And all I did was quickly skim the pages.

            So, after testing the first of these new spells by shooting a bolt of lightning into the sky through our cabin’s window, I sat right back down and pulled the rest of the books out of my item box and got to reading. Thanks to a combination of how easy it was and my own impatience, I managed to learn thirteen new spells in a single day. While about half of them were only meant to make household chores easier, I was sure everyone back in the Mage’s Guild in Amoranth would shoot me a death-glare if they found out.

            Regardless, one of those spell books happened to contain the Water Ball spell. And just like its elemental counterpart, the spell conjured a literal ball of water out of thin air, using nothing but some mana. Sure, it packed more of a punch than a professional pitcher’s best fastball, but it was still water. Thanks to my ability to see an items description without even touching it, I even learned that it was perfectly safe to drink. So, we had all the water we could drink.

            Despite knowing this simple fact, Yua shot me a wry smile.

            “I brought it in case you tried to burn down the forest again and you ran out of mana.”

            “Hey, that only happened twice, and neither time was I out of mana.”

            “Hehehe…”

            She giggled again, but she wasn’t wrong. One of the first of many stupid decisions I made after my reincarnation was testing my Fire Ball spell in the middle of a very flammable forest. The second time was purely by accident while trying to start a fire to cook our dinner.

            “You know,” I started, pretending at anger. “I asked you to stop bringing that up.”

            I picked up one of the buckets she’d lovingly filled with water and silently cast the Purify Water spell on it.

            “Hehe. Why?” she smiled back without a hint of fear in her voice. “Because you got distracted staring at my boobs when you did it?”

            “Hey, need I remind you that you weren’t wearing a shirt at the time? How could I not look?”

            “Yea, but that’s only because you pulled my shirt off yourself and dragged me to bed. Remember, Mr. Perfect Memory?”

            “… Yua, for the crime of reminding me of my mistakes, I sentence you to getting this bucket of water thrown in your face.”

            “Hehe. You can try, Master.~”

            With a playful grin, Yua lowered herself into her favorite fighting stance, only without the usual fierceness she put into it. I met her challenge and readied my bucket.

            We stared each other down. The leaves of the forest continued to rustle until our silence convinced them to lay still. An unseen woodland critter sensed the faux menace and scampered off into the trees for shelter. Yua’s ear twitched and the shadow of a bird flying overhead between us acted as the gunshot signaling the battle to commence.

            With all my might, I threw the content of my bucket at her right and as expected, she dipped and dodged to the left and away from the other buckets to avoid the spray, letting it splash harmlessly into the grass. Using my chance, I dashed for a second bucket, but my efforts were for naught, as Yua was on me well before I could purify the water a second time.

            Using just enough of the strength she held so dear to not hurt me, she wrapped her arms around me, pinning one of my own to my side and pinning her chest against mine, rendering me immobile against the power of her hug, but not before I could raise my second bucket into the sky. With this and before she could render me completely powerless, I slipped the index and middle fingers of the arm she’d locked down into the front of her shorts, pinning her as well.  

            We were at a standstill. Were this a normal fight, she’d have already won. But my bucket held firm. Without releasing me, she looked up at it, then into my eyes and smiled cattily.

            “I think this is my win, Yua.”

            “Oh? But if you drop that on me, I’ll get cold and these nice clothes you bought for me might get ruined. I might even get sick.”

            “That’s fine. I’ll keep you warm in bed until you get better.”

            “Hehe. Then I suppose I won’t be getting any rest.”

            Smirking, planning on turning the white top of her training outfit into a one-woman wet t-shirt contest, I tipped my bucket. A couple droplets of cool water fell down, hit her left breast and slid down into her cleavage. She smiled and I smiled back, ready to sacrifice the both of us to bring out the familiar pink tips she’d been keeping hidden from me since we got dressed this morning.

            Just as I was about to pull the pin and let the water cascade over us, I caught the intense glare of the sun in my eye. It, however, was not reprimanding me for playing with my girl. Instead, it was reminding me of how simplistic our cabin was by how sharp the shadow it cast was.

            We’d lived out here for close to a month now and I’d built this little cabin for us in the dead of night so we’d have some shelter. While I used my Goddess-given abilities to make the construction possible. With the abilities Material Destruction and Creation, both reminiscent of the abilities of a certain popular crafting game, building this was easy. And at the time, I didn’t feel the need to improve the look of the place as all we needed was a roof over our heads, but because of this, the place really wasn’t much to look at.

            “Hey,” I said, lowering the bucket. “I was thinking it’s about time we work on improving the cabin. What about you?”

            Yua tilted her head cutely and her ear gave another confused flick after continuing to remain dry. She turned to the cabin without letting go, still weary of my trickery.

            “What do you mean? What’s wrong with it?”

            “Nothing. I’ve just been thinking of some ways we could improve it. You know, make living here more comfortable.”

            Her hold on me slackened and she let go to take a better look at the place. The cabin was essentially just a large wooden box with nothing in it except our bed, a dining table where we shared our meals and a couple other pieces of furniture. So, there was a lot we could add to further improve our lives.

            Now, did I really do nothing to improve our living conditions in the last month. Really? Yes, but I had good reason in that Yua and I were almost constantly busy doing something else much more intimate.

            Now, now. Let’s all get our minds out of the gutter. I don’t just mean doing that. We spent most of our time talking and, during those talks one of the main topics that came up was my struggles with talking to people. And in her loving attempt to combat this issue head on with me, Yua insisted we talk as often as possible, so I could gain experience with someone I actually wanted to converse with. This seemed to work perfectly where she was concerned, but I did end up neglecting my promise to improve the place as soon as possible.

            “Hmm…” Yua hummed. “Do you think you could add a kitchen? I’d like to cook for you.”

            My heart panged with delight at the mere thought of getting to taste something she made, but knowing about her past, I had to ask…

            “You know how to cook?”

            “Oh, yes. Cooking for our masters was one of the many things we were taught to do at the slave house.”

            “But I thought you weren’t given any good food to eat.”

            Yua, this beautiful, loving cat girl both was and technically always will be a slave. A slave I bought to keep me company back when I was desperate for affection. She’d forgiven me for this and has shown me nothing but love since, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that, after three years of eating nothing but garbage in that slave house, she teared up the first time I gave her real food. I remember this distinctly and without the need for a perfect memory, as the food we shared that night being perfectly bland. But she’d eaten it as if it were the tastiest thing she’d ever eaten.

            Despite this unhappy memory, Yua’s smile did not waver as she turned it back to me.

            “We slaves were taught to cook for the guards and… him, but we weren’t allowed to taste test the meals we made. Someone else did. They’d just tell us how to improve.”

            “I see…”

            “Hehehe. Don’t look so sad. Thanks to that, I’m told I’ve become a good enough cook to run a restaurant.”

            “Well, that’s great to hear. I bet you’ve gotten tired of my cooking then, huh?”

            While my “cooking” consisted mainly of opening my item box and selecting which of the pre-made meals we bought on our way out of the city, I did throw together some ingredients here and there to make us some basic meals. I’d only done this because of my promise to keep Yua well fed, since she came to me looking like she hadn’t eaten in a week, but apparently, I might have been wasting our food. Since most of my cooking experience lay in quick and easy meals that didn’t require much prep and frozen things that could be throw straight in the oven, I can’t say I was the best cook myself.

            Sensing the hint of dejection I let slip into my voice, Yua returned to my side and slipped back into a hug.

            Nuzzling her cheek into my chest, she said, “I love your food, too. The things you've made from your homeland are a little strange, but I’m happy you made it for me.”

            “… I notice you didn’t say it tasted good. For the crime of not complimenting my food, you get the water.”

            I held the bucket back up over my head and, giggling some more, she grabbed hold of my arm with both hands to stop me.

            “I’m serious. I did like it. That grilled-cheese thing is my favorite.”

            “Ah, yes. The classic.”

            Laughing at my own poor example of the good food I promised her, she let go and tugged that the collar of her shirt. The shirt was already an exceedingly loose fit due to it being meant as a comfortable replacement for her sleepwear, so the amount of cleavage she’d left on display was already fairly abundant. But when she pulled on it to fan herself, the only parts of her chest that were left unseen were the pink tips that just barely escaped my line of sight.

            Unfortunately for me, though, she was not trying to entice me back to bed. Instead, she fanned herself with her shirt and her free hand to cool the sweat still clinging to her body. Since she, as a beast-folk, had a very small pool of mana and therefore couldn’t use magic, she’d spent her morning training her body physically. So, when she smiled again after catching me peeking at her, I almost got the impression she might actually enjoyed it if I had poured the water over her.

            “You know, a kitchen sounds nice, but I have something better in mind.”

            “Oh? And what would that be?”

            “Why don’t you just go inside and cool off. I’ll let you know when I’m done.”

            Unphased by my lack of detail, Yua lifted herself onto her toes and planted a kiss on my cheek before she turned and left. Figuring that a chance had made itself known, once she was a few steps away, I let loose and threw the water at her. Her ears gave a small flick and she effortlessly jumped to the side to avoid the splash without even looking. From over her shoulder and through the chestnut hair draped over it, she smirked at me and continued walking.

            With a small shrug of mourning for my failed attempt, I followed her inside with the last two buckets.

            I set the water down on the table and purified it so we could at least get some honest use of her labor and set about scanning the room for the best location to add an attachment to our little cabin in the middle of nowhere. And I was stumped.

            This return to an even more secluded version of the isolation I once complained about was actually now incredibly comforting. Now that I get to routinely spurn the sun’s valiant attempts to rouse me from my slumber so I could enjoy my true wake up call in the form of Yua’s passionate good morning kisses, I really couldn’t complain anymore. Not as long as she was with me.

            The problem lay in that I am no architect and because there weren’t any nearby examples to base this build on. No other building’s whose designs could inspire me. I was going to have to go off my own imagination. This was fine to an extent, but I had no idea how best to work this.

            I shrugged again, deciding to wing it, and took another quick look around the room to decide where to start when I found Yua standing beside the bed. With the pile of neatly folded clothes she’d left on it for herself, I knew what she had in mind, but I stopped her just as she lifted the hem of her shirt up to take it off.

            “Wait, Yua. Don’t change yet. With what I have in mind, you won’t need to.”

            She smirked at me again. Playfully, she inclined her chin and let her shirt fall back down over her breasts. She then pushed her folded clothes aside and sat herself on our sleeping bag mattress and parted her legs provocatively.

            “And here I thought you wanted to add something to the house.”

            Despite our nightly tumbling through the sheets together, I still found my cheeks heating up at the sultry smile she shot me with. But I shook my head.

            “That’s not what I meant. Just hold on a minute. I won’t be long.”

            Tilting her head in confusion over the sort of pass that I had not once thought to ignore before, she closed her legs to sit more comfortably. And with just a tiny bit of regret stewing in my mind, and after choosing the corner by the dining table as my target, I got to work.

            Work on what, you may ask. To put it simply, a bath. Though we joked about it, the water Yua collected from the river was actually, partially, meant to clean ourselves with once our training for the day was done. Due to Yua’s nose being so sensitive, we had to clean ourselves regularly so she wasn’t left feeling uncomfortable the whole time. She went through the great effort of getting used to city smells in her time staying with the humans there and forced herself to get used to quite a bit, but I didn’t want her to have to do so in her own home. So, I bore the burden of bathing via bucket this last month, even though my Body Wash spell was more than effective enough.

            But now that I’d perfected the control of my Fire Ball spell, we’d no longer had to deal with cold river water. Or so I hoped. The plan, at least, was to not evaporate the water on accident.

            While I had grown up with the luxury of running water, it didn’t take me all that long to acclimate myself to using water straight from the source, now I think I need to make use of the gold I put into my magic and actually start using it to make our lives a little easier.

            Focusing on the back wall in the corner of the cabin, I activated Material Destruction and a section of the wall and flooring about twice the width of a typical doorway disappeared without my having to touch it. Sunlight streamed in through the new hole, drawing an interested look from Yua, but she waited patiently.

            With the soil beneath the flooring now visible again, I made repeated casts of the Destruction ability to dig down into the ground. With Material Creation, I reused the wood I just removed and reshaped it to cover the path I dug to make a short staircase. Once more amused by how the ability made the perfectly smoothed wood look like it’d been mechanically-carved from a single piece of timbre, I smirked as I dug deeper.

            Deep enough underground were the sun’s gentle rays could no longer reach me, I cast the Fairy’s Light spell and three tiny orbs of energy formed in the air, orbiting around one another and lighting the room. I hadn’t needed to do much testing with this particular spell, since it did pretty much exactly what I was expecting of it in that it created a small orb of pure light to replace the need for a torch. So, I was unsurprised but grateful when a small ball of light, seemingly without any fuel to keep itself lit, floated out of my hand and flew up to hover over my head, lighting my surroundings with a bright white light.

            Biting back a small laugh at how useful this basic spell was, where its video game counterpart was nothing but a convenience I’d routinely forget to cast, I quickly carved out a large portion of the surrounding soil, making us what was essentially a temporary basement.

            After I had made this new addition to our cabin sufficiently large enough, I quickly covered the surrounding dirt walls and ceiling with the leftover wood I had in my item box after clearing the training grounds behind the cabin. Thick, sturdy wood paneling popped into existence and quickly took to the shape of a proper room.

            Satisfied with my work so far, I thought of what I was making and made an air hole in the ceiling leading back up through the soil and letting in an abundance of sunlight. As is, the hole would be a trip hazard when training, but I could just cover it when I set about expanding the rest of the house.

            After that, I set about making a large, lidless box of wood that expanded the entire length of the room. I made sure that all of the corners and the insides were as smooth and rounded as if an army of carpenters took to scrubbing every inch of it with sandpaper, all so nobody hurt themselves using it. And with this, our bathtub was complete.

            Standing back to observe my work, I considered a few other details the bathroom would need. All I got out of the short brainstorming session was that we’d need a towel rack, another table for our clothes and somewhere to store the cleaning supplies we bought.

            Once I was finished with the smaller details, I decided to put my magic training to the test.

            Putting my Silent Casting trait to good use to keep what I was doing as a surprise for Yua, and her sensitive ears, I silently cast the Water Ball spell. A baseball-sized ball of water no larger than its fiery counterpart shot out of my palm and into the tub, splashing inside with a bit more force than I meant it to, as it dented the wood just enough for it to be noticeable at a glance. So, as with my training, when I cast it again and tried to imagine it coming out much slower. Luckily, this worked and the spell shot from my palm with about as much force as dropping a ball to the ground. Thanks to this, I was able to quickly fill the tub.

            Finally finished, I called Yua over. She was a little unsteady at first when setting foot on the stairs that weren’t there a minute ago, but after testing their ability to properly support her weight, she came to my side. Looking all around the room in awe at the new, but simple addition to the cabin, her eyes eventually landed on the tub and it held her attention as much as I would have expected.

            “What’s this?”

            “I built us our own bath.”

            “You did?!”

            Her surprise was about as par for the course as I could expect, since she already knew what I could do with my abilities and she never ceased to find them interesting. The thing that got her most was that, in this medieval world, most people couldn’t afford to make something like this. And even if they could, it’d still cost them a lot of fire wood just to heat up enough water to make it something you could relax in. Even if it was simple in design, it was a tiny bit extravagant.

            “Alex, this is… amazing.”

            I let slip a small laugh at her trying and failing not to resort to her favorite compliment. Trying not to belittle her enthusiasm by saying all this was easy to make, I pushed on.

            “Thanks, but I brought you down here to help me.”

            “Really? How can I help?”

            Yua immediately stood at attention, her heels clapping together with enough force to make her sizeable bust jiggle as she waited for her next order like a trained soldier. I couldn’t help but smile at her.

            “All you need to do is stand there. I’m going to use fire magic to heat the water in the bath. I haven’t tried this before, so if any steam it makes happens to burn me, I’ll need you on standby to heal me. Just keep back by the entrance.”

            Not too long before we left Amoranth, we leveled Yua’s Monk class enough in the dungeons to earn her the ability “Healing Punch,” which worked sort of like a health potion. However, unlike said potions, all this ability cost was some of her stamina and a bit of skin-to-skin contact. So, in a way, her ability was superior, since it could be used again after a break instead of dropping coin on another potion.

            Fortunately for us, my little fire-starting accident a while back didn’t result in any burns, but that meant I couldn’t know if her ability could treat them just yet. This was all just a precaution. I planned on keeping my spells in check to prevent such a thing anyways.

            “Ready when you are!” Yua said, taking a stance that looked like she would tackle me to the ground and force a heal if I got hurt.

            Nodding along with her eagerness, I went ahead and cast my Fire Ball spell at the water. As I thought, as soon as the water swallowed the flame, hot steam exploded into the air and started floating up through the whole in the ceiling, freeing itself from the confines of our little basement bath.

            With a brief moment of pause, I dipped a tentative finger into the water where the spell landed. It was nice and hot, but the corners of the tub weren’t. So, I cast a few more Fire Balls at them to warm them up. Once I was done shooting fire at water, and chuckling inwardly at the absurdity of doing so, the bath was nice and comfortably hot all around.

            “Alright, all done.”

            “Eh? But I wanted to help...”

            Yua’s ears flattened against her head a little in a show of sadness that would have been otherwise incomplete without the gesture. So, I had to fight the urge to pat her on the head like a cat.

            “You do know that helping me meant I would have gotten hurt, right?”

            Using all the acting skills of a drama club dropout, Yua feigned ignorance as she strolled to the tub. With her tail swishing about so playfully, it was only too obvious that she hadn’t considered this.

            I matched her mood with a lighthearted sigh and watched as she bent over the tub to test the water herself. Without any of the hesitation I showed myself, Yua dipped her fingers into the water and slowly ran them across the bath’s surface with a pleasant smile on her face. Knowing that she trusted me enough not to question the heat after I tested it myself made me oddly happy.

            As warm as the sight of her enjoying herself made me feel, I was struck with another sudden realization so blatant that it might as well have appeared as a notification on my HUD. That being: Yua had at some point taken her shorts off.

            With her casually swinging her hips to the tune of her own enjoyment as she played with the water, I could not help but notice that her extra loose top had slipped midway down the slight curve of her back and that there was now nothing covering her shapely bottom but a pair of plain pink panties that seemed hellbent on conforming its fabric to her every curve. No matter how intimate the places those curves were found. I dare say we might have gotten her a pair that was too small for her, but with her tail waving about almost like a metronome meant to draw my gaze, she didn’t seem at all bothered by it.

            As if she’d caught me looking purely by the sudden change to my heartbeat, Yua looked at me from over her shoulder, then to her own swaying hips. She smiled lovingly and stood, sauntering over to me to tap me on the nose with the wet tip of the finger she’d been running through the water.

            “Alex, is there something you wanted to ask of me?”

            “Y-Yea, actually. Something I’ve been meaning to ask you for a while now.”

            Her ears flicked curiously, but her smile didn’t waver. Like she had our first night together, she’d noticed the slight trepidation in my voice and gave me all the room I needed to ask my question. Gulping down my past pessimism before it could rear its ugly head with thoughts of rejection, I pressed on.

            “You missed out on trying to help me with the bath, how would you like to help me out in a way only you can?”

            This drew her attention more, her ears flicking with twice the speed. I could tell by the slight wry-turn to her smile that her thoughts were in the same ballpark as my own, but I knew they weren’t quite there.

            “Of course,” she said. “Ask away.”

            Her ears perked up and her tail started swishing about again where I hadn’t even noticed it went still as she waited. As a slave herself, Yua seemed to take great joy in the fact that I didn’t outright demand things of her and I actively avoided doing so. Not just because I didn’t want to force her, but because, regardless of what I asked of her, she was always willing to do it. Which is why I wanted to be careful here.

            “Could you get on your knees for me?”

            “Sure.~”

            She happily knelt down right then and there without so much as taking a moment’s pause to consider the short distance she’d left between us. Through the steam clouding the room, she looked straight up at me. Even after all of the lust we’d shared with one another this last month, this was still all new territory for us. I’d been sitting on this request for a couple days now after watching how enthusiastically she went about licking the grease off her fingers after dinner one night, but what gave me pause was the adorable lack of common sense she had when it came to this sort of thing.

            To put it bluntly, Yua knew next to nothing of sex. Naturally, she knew how it was usually done and why people did it, but that was the limit for her. I hadn’t asked if this was due to her being enslaved when she was still a young teen, or if her tribe just didn’t experiment much, but my guess was the latter. Considering how fully aware of what a female slave being bought by a man usually entailed, that was the only sensible option.

            But why consider this now after already having her on her knees? It’s because she didn’t seem to have a clue what my intentions were. She just smiled up at me, waiting for my next request.

            “Now, um… could put my penis in your mouth?”

            About as familiar with her body as I was my own by now, I still felt it ungodly embarrassing to actually ask for a favor like this. Up until now, every instance of bedtime fun had been entirely based on spur-of-the-moment feelings. Catching her in the middle of changing her clothes and her grinning seductively back at me after noticing. Or her adjusting her pants to fit her tail and showing off a little too much of what was beneath them when I was already within groping distance. Or even just her morning kiss becoming a bit adventurous when the natural phenomena of the male body’s morning salute to the world stood up to greet her before I could myself.

            Neither of us asked for anything in particular, we just let our feelings take the lead. But this was one of many things I’ve always wanted to try, so I had to take this chance as it presented itself.

            Instead of looking any sort of upset in the face of this sexual favor, Yua just tilted her head in obvious confusion, but started on the belt I was wearing. Thanks to all the times she’d jumped on me herself, she was skilled enough to have both my belt and my pants down around my ankles before I said a word. All the same, she wrapped her slender fingers around the base of my swelling shaft once it sprang out of my underwear. She moved her face a little closer and her touch sent shivers running up my spine.

            Still looking confused, Yua ignored the object of lust in her hand to look me in the eye.

            “You want me to eat your penis?”

            “Yes… Well, no. It’s not what you’re thinking. I, uh… want you to use your mouth to make me feel good. Like last night, but with your mouth this time. Just lick and suck on it until I tell you to stop. And try to not let your teeth touch it. Okay?”

            Knowing that she wouldn’t understand what I meant had I just spit out the word “blowjob”, I gave her a quick rundown of how it worked, but she only seemed more confused. I, however, was already half-erect just from her holding my second brain with her hand.

            “Will that really make you feel good?” she asked incredulously.

            “Definitely. It might take some practice on your end, but I’m sure you can do it.”

            “Alright,” she said, pumping her fist like she were about to go into battle. “If you’re sure, I’ll make you feel good no matter what!”

            Without the slightest hint of caution, Yua lifted my cock up to her mouth. Another shiver ran up and down my spine, this time nearly dropping me when I felt the hot breath she let out through her nostrils caress me. Careful to watch my reaction, she licked curiously at my tip. When she saw it twitch and saw me shudder, she must have taken it as a sign that it really did feel good, because she followed up with a kiss. I hadn’t even asked her to do so. She pressed her lips lovingly against the head of my cock, as if only now deciding that our good-morning kiss wasn’t enough to thank me for my efforts in bed last night.

            After a few moments of her testing the waters like this and me wondering if I was abusing my power over her, as she did have the habit of occasionally slipping back into slave mode, she quieted my thoughts when she opened her mouth and let her lips slide over the head of my cock.

            Draining away any and all thoughts other than her loving caress, her slippery tongue slid against the bottom of my shaft, sending sparks of pleasure rocketing a near fatal blow directly into my spine. I nearly let my knees buckle when she took me a little deeper, until I flexed every muscle in my legs to keep myself standing. Due to the impressive size I had been granted upon coming to this world, she could only take in about a third of it at once. But that was all either of us needed.

            Seeing my pleasant reaction, Yua still managed a smile while holding me in her mouth. Taking it as a sign that she really was making me feel good, she got started. Without any order or request given, she started wiggling her tongue this way and that, tasting every inch of my shaft she could reach. At the same time, she sucked on it lightly, as if gently trying to draw out the building pleasure. Being that this was a first for both of us, I didn’t fully know if what she was doing was correct, but damned if it didn’t feel good. The only issue was that she wasn’t moving anything but her tongue.

            Emboldened by how easily she did this for me, I placed a hand between her cat ears, and slowly and lightly started moving her head back and forth along my shaft to get her into the rhythm. She was surprised at first when I suddenly prompted her to take me a little deeper, but she didn’t look at all as uncomfortable as I thought she might. Makes me wonder why I even hesitated.

            A quick learner, once she got the motion down, she was able to slide her tongue along my cock without any guidance. So, keeping my had on her head to run my fingers through her hair, I let her take over.

            “That feels… so good. Yua. Keep going... please.”

            Spurred on by my praise, Yua’s tongue started flicking about a little more rapidly. As the pleasure was being sucked out of me, all I could do was watch as the beautiful, half-naked girl between my legs gave her all to make me feel her love. It took every ounce of restraint I had left in me to keep from moving my hips to let her get used to the motion.

            However, before I could throw my head back and give into the sloppy sounds of her first blowjob, she pulled me out of her mouth and, cheeks flushed, she looked up to me with a questioning gaze.

            “Mmphh… Alex, my place down here feels tingly.”

            Yua covered her crotch with her hand and looked at me with a concerned twist to her brow. A bit late for that considering we had sex all of last night, but she was too cute to criticize. It may be awkward as all hell to need to teach her these things, but her naivete towards anything even remotely sexual had been made clear this last month. Her knowledge of the world has been invaluable to me so far, but she seemed lost in only this regard.

            Just two days into our secluded life in this cabin, she had sat me down in the middle of the day with a moderately frustrated look on her face. Thinking that she was finally going to tell me I went too far with my semi-frequent groping, she instead pulled me out of my pants, pointed to a certain part of my genitalia and asked “what do humans call those things?”  Apparently, her people apparently didn’t actually have names for either gender’s bits and pieces and the idea of them having a name seemed to be honestly interesting to her.

            I’d honestly enjoyed getting to share some of my knowledge with her, even with the topic being what it was, so I gave her a quick rundown of how the male body worked. But I was so taken aback by her then using her newfound knowledge to ask me to “use your penis to make her feel good” moments after the short lecture concluded, that I apparently forgot to tell her how her own body worked.

            And now, right in the middle of something so intimate, she asked me to explain what was happening to her with all the seriousness of someone asking for the password to stop a ticking time bomb from exploding, so I was more or less at a loss.

            “That place is your vagina. But you can also call it your pussy, but only when we are alone, okay?”

            “Is that what humans call it? O-Okay. Then, my pussy feels weird.”

            “That’s just because you feel aroused” I said, not needing to know if I was right thanks to how stiff her nipples were under her shirt. “It’s a good thing. Just keep going and masturbate.”

            “Master… bate?... Mmmph… whaf’s fhat?”

            Drawing me back into her mouth mid-sentence, her words and lips vibrated against my shaft, nearly knocking me down again.

            Of course, she wouldn’t know what that is. During our first night together, I learned that she didn’t know what her own clitoris was and that touching it could bring her pleasure. As hard as it was to believe, she’s clearly never touched herself before. I knew she was a virgin before I bought her, but finding that out was a surprise so abundant that I could never have been ready.

            “Remember last night, when I made you orgasm with just my fingers?”

            I reminded her of the orgasm-inducing foreplay I started on her with before jumping into the real deal and she nodded with my cock still in her mouth.

            “Just do what I did then, but do it to your… self… Fuck, your tongue feels good.”

            Ever curious and with a little saliva dripping down her chin, Yua reached a hand between her thighs. I watched as she unashamedly slip her fingers into her panties, making them bulge with the shape of her knuckles, only to then feel her body jolt when she made contact with the part of her begging for attention. Thanks to the very same panties that spurred me into making this request of her, I couldn’t see a thing, but I could see the lust in her eyes telling me she was able to clearly remember how I caressed her.

            Just as I had done for her, Yua quickened the pace of her fingers once she found what worked for her and brought herself to a squirting climax not too long into the pleasure she tried to bring the both of us. With my cock stoppering her moans, I felt my consciousness wane. Another small detail I’d noticed in her was that she gets off pretty easily. Lucky me.

            Despite her orgasm making her entire body shiver, she continued licking up the precum dripping from my cock. Unfortunately, now that she’d finished herself off prematurely, she looked to be struggling to keep up the same pace.

            I desired pleasure, but I wasn’t about to force her into giving it to me. The fact that she was even willing to try this was already more than enough for me. So, I put a little force into the hand I held in her hair to slow her into stopping, even though the pleasured tingling in the base of my shaft was begging me to let her go on.

            “Y-Yua, you can stop if it’s making you need to.”

            I pressed her head lightly, giving her a small push to let me go, but when she popped me out of her mouth, she shook her head with an oddly fierce smile I’d thought only belonged on her lips when facing a fight.

            “I can do this,” she said. “Please, let me continue… Mmph!”

            Without waiting for a response, Yua swept my hand away from her head and got back to work.

            Did I somehow insult her pride for asking her to stop? I did feel her grip on me tighten just a bit, but her technique didn’t improve much. I wasn’t expecting a professional level effort here, but I was so lost in her expression flip-flopping between fierce determination and a loving-effort to care.

            Regardless of how I felt about it, she continued doing her best.

            My shoulders slumped as fireworks began to light off in my mind. In the moments leading up to what I already knew was going to be an explosive finish, my eyelids fluttered and all other worldly worries ceased.

            “Yua, I’m going to... P-Please swallow it.”

            Reaching climax at an increasingly fast pace, I almost subconsciously started thrusting my hips, but I managed to hold still for fear of hurting her. Already familiar with what was going to happen once I reached orgasm, Yua braced herself by putting her hands on my thighs and finished me off with just her mouth and tongue.

            A burst of extreme pleasure erupted from the tip of my cock to fill her mouth. She let out a muffled cry of surprise, but she didn’t stop. Even against the absurd volume of the release, her tongue and the suction she assaulted me with continued to draw out more and more until her cheeks started to puff out from the excess.

            When I’d finally reached the limit, we both let me slip out of her mouth, each bellowing a sigh of relief, though for entirely different reasons. With the same non-existent hesitation as before, Yua quickly pressed her lips together and covered her mouth with her hand, so as to not let any of the thick white liquid escape her tongue. I then watched in an aroused awe as she worked to force down what took multiple small swallows to finish.

            Yua’s hand fell to her side and she started breathing heavily. Her chest heaving, she wiped the saliva from her chin and smiled up at me. There was no sign of discomfort in her beauty.

            “Haa… Haa… Your semens tasted kind of weird. But that masturbation thing felt really good. Have you tried it before?”

            “Y-Yes… I hope I wasn’t too rough,” I sighed again, reeling from the new form of pleasure. “It that was too much, then…”

            “Did I make you feel good?”

            “You did. It felt amazing.”

            While I felt about ready to keel over, my admitting this only made her smile widen.

            “Thank goodness,” she said. “I was worried I wasn’t doing it right. You think… Do you think it’d be okay if I practice that in the mornings? Your penis is usually really energetic when you wake up anyway, so…”

            “Wait, you mean you actually want to try again?”

            Doing my absolute best not to look the gift horse so far in the mouth that I could see out its back end, I had to ask. Here I thought she might have thought I was pushing her too far, but she looked like she actually enjoyed herself. She nodded with a firm smile.

            “Naturally. If we’re going to do something, we might as well do it right.”

            She pumped her fist and pat her bicep, as if I’d just taught her some sort of martial arts technique that she now wanted to master.

            “A-And you want to do it… every day?”

            “Yes, please… Oh! Um, only if you’re okay with it. I’m happy to have regular sex if you’d prefer. I just want to make sure to do my best for my mate.”

            I blinked. Blinked hard, trying to determine if she and the wonderous thing she just proposed was real, but Yua just kept sitting there on her knees, smiling at me. If I couldn’t still feel her breath caress the saliva she left on my shaft, I would have had no choice but to assume this was a dream.

            “It, uh… I’d love to do this every day. As long as you’re okay with it. If it ever proves to be too tiresome, just let me know.”

            “Don’t worry, I can handle this! As your mate, this is nothing.”

            With another pump of her fist, Yua affirmed her determination and left no room for question. During our first night together, she told me that going all the way meant we’d be mates forever and she was serious. Whenever the topic of our relationship came up, I was never her boyfriend or her lover, I was her mate. And for all it was worth, she took to that title very seriously.

            “R-Right. Then let’s get in the bath before it gets cold.”