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Luka's Story 4- The problem with gods	By : Ditmag Category: +M through R > Monster Girl Quest Views: 1296 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Monster Girl Quest is the intellectual property of Tortorro Resistance. I make no money from this work.

Chapter List
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Tamamo was gone when I awakened, which surprised me given how long a sleeper she was. Then I realized that she had probably not slept well at all and probably went to go speak to Alice. I dreaded finding out what the outcome of that conversation would be. I didn’t have to wait long. There was a soft knock on my door.
“Come in!” I shouted.
Alice opened the door and stepped into the room. I say “stepped” because once again she was in human form. She pulled up a chair and sat next to my bedside.
“It sounds like you had quite a time last night,” Alice said. “I didn’t expect them all to go completely nuts on the first day. Just because they can, doesn’t mean they should.”
“So did you talk to Tamamo?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“If talking means a lot of shouting and almost coming to blows, yes, we talked. I actually wasn’t that angry, just surprised. I had no idea she felt that way about you. Your hall passes were generally license for Granberia and occasionally Alma Elma. How many times has Tamamo had sex with you in the last ten years? Three times?”
“I think that’s right,” I replied.
“Well, I know exactly what came over her,” Alice explained. “she was angry at me. You know how Tamamo is. When she’s mad about how I’m treating you, she lets me hear about it. But it was weird. I heard from Erubetie, Alma Elma, even Granberia, about that incident, but Tamamo said nothing. Until today.”
“What did she say?”
“Well, first she apologized profusely. I should have left it at that. I was surprised and a little jealous, but not terribly angry. Then I made the mistake of asking her why. She said it was because I didn’t deserve you, that I’d committed the ultimate betrayal. That I try to control you instead of supporting you, that I’m not sensitive enough to your traumas, a whole list of things. The thing is, she was right about all of it. But her arguments were also self serving. She fell in love with you and she wants you for herself.What’s more, she tried to bind you to her forever by force like she did her first husband. It turns out that I’m not the only one around here who still needs to change.”
“Did you send her away?”
“No, I didn’t,” Alice sighed. “She knows what she did and she’s not going to do it again. She realizes it will be awkward between you and her for awhile, but she’s going to try to get back to normal. If you and Granberia can be comfortable around one another despite Granberia being in love with you, Tamamo can live with her feelings as well. She just needed to get it off her chest.”
“Alice,” I said. “Despite everything, you’ve made me an incredibly happy man. Don’t let anyone convince you that you don’t deserve me. I’m still not sure I deserve you. You helped make me who I am today.”
“We both made each other better,” Alice replied. “I just worry that the stresses of my job are going to end us. It’s why Tamamo made it so hard for Monster Lords to marry. Maybe she didn’t make it hard enough.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. Why not hand over the reins? Not now, I mean when little Alice grows up and is ready. You don’t have to serve as Monster Lord your entire life.”
“Idiot,” Alice laughed affectionately. “Little Alice isn’t even born yet. I don’t even think her dad has been born yet. Unless you want me to find a man now? Then I can quit in twenty years? I’ll still be very young.”
“No, Little Alice has to exist. You’ll love to meet her. She’s incredible.”
“I know I must have chosen the father myself in the original timeline, but since you know who he is, just point me in his direction when the time comes. I’m excited to meet Little Alice as well. Although I don’t know that ‘Little Alice’ is any name for a future Monster Lord.”
“It’s just the nickname she got from me and her dad,” I said. “She seemed to like it.”
“I guess she’ll have a very unique upbringing. Monster Lords don’t even get one dad. She’ll have two. I wonder how that will change her outlook?”
“I think it will make her an amazing Monster Lord,” I predicted. “So you’re agreeing to this? Just…. Retiring as soon as your daughter is ready?”
“Most Monster Lords don’t serve until their deaths,” Alice said. “It will be unusual for me to prepare my daughter to take over at a young age, but I was very young when I became Monster Lord. If she’s as amazing as you say, she’ll be ready as soon as she’s physically mature.”
“So most Monster Lords were a little older when they ascended to the throne?”
“Yes,” Alice confirmed. “My mother was eighty-seven years old, about forty in human years. Her opponent was Cassandra. She was very old. Her race is extremely long lived. They can live almost a thousand years. One thing that was so unusual about my succession battle was not just the sheer number of contestants, but their youth. Tamamo and Erubetie were the only ones over thirty. Even my mother was fairly young when she took over. Most of the time Monster Lords take over around a hundred or so.”
“I’d been wondering about the math. Since Black Alice, the average reign has been sixty years. Yet your race lives about two hundred years.”
“Yes, most Monster Lords have reigned from middle age to early old age.”
“Interesting.”
“There are books about all of them in the library if you care to look. I know how much you love learning about our history.”
“Thank you, Alice,” I said gratefully. “I can hold out another fifty or sixty years. Then we’ll spend the rest of our lives just relaxing and traveling.”
“I think I’d like that. Now we have three worlds to explore. There’s so much of your world I haven’t seen. I’d love to see this Paris place. Is it true they speak gibberish there?”
“They call it French. Still not used to the idea that humans speak all sorts of languages?”
“It just doesn’t make any sense!” Alice exclaimed. “You all have the same anatomy! Why make it harder to communicate? Your society is so modern! Just agree on one language and speak it! Preferably whatever you call the human tongue that we speak here.”
“English,” I reminded her.
“Yes, English. From a country called England, right?”
“Yep.”
“I’d like to see that place too. They speak the human tongue in a very pretty way. I believe they called it the Queen’s English? I’d like to speak that way myself. We’ll call it The Monster Lord’s English.”
It was good to be able to just chat with my wife again. I loved Tamamo dearly for sticking up for me when Alice did me wrong, but did she not see how real our affection for each other was? Alice wasn’t perfect, but then who was? She was a product of her upbringing and her culture. As was Tamamo. Tamamo had changed over the long centuries, but she had still spent most of her life being a terrible person. Alice was only thirty-two, and had made great strides in a relatively short time. Tamamo should cut her some slack, I thought.
“Well, I have to get back to work,” Alice said. “Can I talk you into sleeping with me tonight?”
“I’d like that,” I said.
“We’ll take baby steps. I’ll stay in human form. I’m kinda growing to like this form, anyway.”
“You do make a lovely human,” I said affectionately.
“So do you,” Alice replied, kissing me softly goodbye.

“Rise and shine, Luka!”
“Ilias? Oh. It’s good to see that you changed your schtick a little.”
“See, I can evolve!” the goddess exclaimed gleefully. “It’s time for our second date! I’m doing something really nice for you this time! Epcot!”
Before I could get excited, or ask her to let me sleep a little longer, I hadn’t yet decided which, we were standing in the middle of Epcot center in Florida. I’d been to Epcot recently with Alice, who also loved the place, more to check out the technology than to experience the rides. Not to mention the Food and Wine festival, which got her dragging me through the portal and onto a train every year.
This, however, was not the food and wine festival. The hairstyles, the clothes, the look of the park. Ilias had taken me back to the glory days of Epcot.
“Let me guess,” I said. “1991? It looks and feels like 1991.”
“Close,” Ilias answered. “1992. So what do you want to do first?”
“First I want to thank you for this. This is something no one else could have done for me. It’s an incredible gift.”
“If you’d stayed on my good side back when I was actually powerful you’d have enjoyed gifts beyond your imagining. This right here is nothing more than the equivalent of chocolate and flowers for one such as me.”
“Still, I love it,” I said. “Thank you so much. I suggest we start with Spaceship Earth. Have you ever been here?”
“I haven’t,” the goddess replied. “I like amusement parks but I’ve only done a couple. Disneyland, because you can’t say you’ve been to Earth and not seen Disneyland. I also did a Six Flags once. But this looks interesting. A different idea in theme parks. Seems like a technology showcase more than an amusement park.”
“That’s what it was intended to be. It educates you, but you also have fun in the process.”
We got in line for Spaceship Earth. Fortunately, Ilias had chosen a date when the park was not crowded, so we didn’t have to wait long. While in line, Ilias couldn’t help but comment on the ridiculous perms so many women wore. Since she said it out loud, some women with ridiculous perms gave her dirty looks, as if to say, ‘Hey, not everyone can have lovely blonde locks down to their ass. Some of us work for a living and have kids to raise.’
The ride was what it was. It was one of the few cases where I preferred the newer version. The highlight for me was Horizons, which had closed in 1998. I’d always wanted to see it, as it was a view of the future from the vantage point of the 1980s. It was as spectacular as the videos on Youtube had described. The Space Shuttle liftoff, which was done inside a huge dome, was incredible. Even Ilias was impressed.
“Humans did that,” the goddess said, shaking her head in wonder. “And not just that. Even this ride… it’s a marvel! I know it’s all special effects and other tricks, but it’s still a wonder, both technologically and artistically.”
As we got towards the end of the ride, there was an option to complete the ride by soaring through space, over a desert, or under the sea. Ilias invoked goddess privilege to select space, slapping my hand away when I tried to vote for desert. Bossy just like Alice, I thought. As soon as we got off the ride, she dragged me back into line. I wasn’t complaining. It really was the best thing Epcot had to offer. It took four times before she finally became bored with it, choosing instead to grope me to pass the time on our last ride through. Me explaining to her that it wasn’t that kind of date didn’t deter her in the slightest. For a non-monster who supposedly didn’t need to feed off of men, she sure acted like one sometimes.
Journey To Imagination started Ilias off on a dissertation about the imagination of humans, how it was our greatest strength. I wasn’t bored at all. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I still loved intellectual things. Ilias was about as smart as they came, and was interesting to listen to when she got rolling.
World Showcase wasn’t very exciting for me, but it was always a highlight for Alice because of all the foods to try. Alice would always have us stop and eat in every single country, ordering a full size meal at each and every plaza. She never could pick a favorite, so she always just ate at all of them.
Ilias was also fascinated by the food and different cultures. I’d gotten the wrong impression from her disinterest in technical things, something which annoyed Promestein to no end when the scientist had served the goddess. Finding out that Ilias did in fact have a lot of intellectual curiosity made me think more highly of her. It didn’t hurt that I didn’t have to spend a fortune feeding her. Ilias settled for making me buy her small snacks from about half the national exhibits we stopped in. Fortunately, no one looked too closely at the dates on my currency. Ilias revealed to me that no one would notice anything she didn’t want them noticing. It was a way to make sure no major changes occurred that could mess with the timeline, as well as to keep us out of trouble. I recalled that Alipheese had been able to use what little magic she could command here in similar ways.
I definitely felt as if the ice was starting to break between us. At some points during our day in the park, we even held hands, mainly because Ilias forced me to. As night fell and we’d done everything we wanted to do in the park, Ilias took me to a secluded spot and shoved me against a wall. She began kissing me roughly. I pushed her away.
“Ilias, what’s with the groping and kissing?” I asked. “You once told me that a girl like you could never like a guy like me.”
“I’m just being friendly,” she pouted. “we’re trying to get along, right? Haven’t you been in my world long enough to know what getting along usually entails?”
“Maybe with monsters, but I’ve only had sex with one human in my life in your world. And even she was part monster, which is probably why she wanted to do it.”
“Wait a minute!” Ilias exclaimed, realization lighting her eyes. “You’ve never been with a human! Like… ever! That makes you practically a virgin! You’ve only been with angels and monsters! Oh, we need to get you laid today!”
“No, we don’t,” I said firmly. “Alice has been very tolerant of me being with other monsters, and even some angels. But humans carry disease. Also, sex doesn’t mean the same thing for most humans that it means for monsters and angels. It’s just not necessary for me to be unfaithful to my wife with one.”
“Fine!” Ilias said, pouting again. “So that means you can have sex with me?”
“I’ve already had sex with you.”
“Never willingly.”
“The first time was… semi-willingly. I didn’t bring you to my home just for conversation.”
“Why you dirty little manwhore!” Ilias laughed, playfully punching my arm. “You were a perv even then!”
“I was not a ‘perv’!” I objected. “I was a virgin hoping that either you or ‘Pamela’ wanted to do it with me, while fully expecting that you two were just going to rob me. As you said, girls like you don’t want guys like me.”
“You thought we were going to rob you?! Is that a thing here? Ladies making men think they want to sleep with them and then taking their stuff?”
“Oh yeah,” I confirmed. “Sometimes they do have sex with the man, but they’ll drug him and while he sleeps, they’ll steal his valuables.”
“Now aren’t you glad that we weren’t thieves? We sent you on the adventure of a lifetime. You went from a complete zero here to the most desired man in the world. You’re welcome.”
“I’m still having trouble with that concept,” I admitted. “An Ancestor just professed her love to me. You’re trying to get into my pants. It’s all so unbelievable. Like it’s a wet dream that I never wake up from.”
“Human women never gave you a chance to show them who you were. Monsters, they’ll play with anyone who smells delicious. But it wasn’t your deliciousness that made some of them fall in love with you. It’s your character. You really do change people. I can’t say you’ve changed me. I still hate your guts. But at least you’re fun to be around and you buy me things. Interested in a third date?”
“Sure. But how about on your world? If it’s not too boring.”
“Ah, so it’s a ‘your place or mine’ proposition?” she chuckled. “Fine. I guess we did your place for the first two dates, the third time can be mine. I’ll give some thought to what I want to do and I’ll… do what I usually do. I’ll just pop into your head and come and get you.”

I awakened in my bed once again. I checked my Iphone. It didn’t do much in Alice’s world, but I still had trouble keeping track of time without it. Monsters and most humans who lived in this world didn’t use clocks very much. They just knew what time of day it was, and at least for now, they didn’t need precise times to the minute to make appointments. “I’ll see you at sundown” or “How about midday?” was more than adequate for their purposes. Looking at my Iphone, I found that once again, no time had passed even though I’d been with Ilias all day. That was convenient, however, because due to the way time moved on my world vs. Alice’s, a full day out could be as much as a week here.
Alma Elma burst into the room. “Rise and shine, Luka, big day today!”
“Huh?” I asked, confused. “I just had a big day. What’s this big day?”
“You’re finally taking me to your world!” the succubus replied excitedly. “Not just me, of course! All four of us! It’s going to be a night on the town! Dinner, movie, night clubs, oh my! Can we even do some shopping?”
“We’re doing all that today?” I asked. “It sure seems like people here say that we’re going to do something, and then rather than telling me when we’ll do it, I just get yanked out of bed without prior warning.”
“Oh, stop being an eighty year old stick in the mud in a twenty year old’s body!” she said, literally yanking me out of bed. “Be spontaneous! Get dressed! I’m so excited!”
“Why are we doing this right now, so early in the morning?”
“Promestein said that it’s late afternoon on your world, on some day called ‘Friday’. Supposedly Friday night is when your people party.”
“No wonder you’re up so early. You’re usually sound asleep at this time.”
“That’s because I’m so eager to go! Oh, Luka, you aren’t going to even believe the rewards I’m going to give you when we get back! You probably won’t remember them either, but that’s neither here nor there. Now come on, get dressed? You’re standing there in your underwear like you’re expecting me to drop to my knees and blow you. Do you want me to drop to my knees and blow you? I can totally do that.”
“No! I’d better get dressed!”
“If you keep saying no like that, someday I’ll make you beg for me,” she said with a wicked smile. “I know I’m always on your mind. You may not be the kind of person I thought you were when I first met you, but you are as perverted as any man I’ve ever met.”
“Alma Elma, have I ever told you how happy I am that you’re alive?”
“Every day,” she said. She gave me a quick kiss and rushed out of the room to get ready herself.

The date had originally been a second date with Erubetie, for just the two of us. Erubetie, however, was one of the two Heavenly Knights not particularly attached to me, so she had no problem turning it into a girls’ night out. But she still wanted to see Sonic, so that was the movie whether anyone else liked it or not. Erubetie put her slimy foot down on that one.
We didn’t leave on time, mainly because Tamamo vetoed Alma Elma’s choice of outfit. Instead, she directed Alma Elma to her very large wardrobe to select something more appropriate. When Alma Elma came out in human form, I was stunned. She had chosen a lovely skirt that surprisingly went past her knees. Her top, however, was very revealing, but met the minimal standards of appropriateness for clubbing. As lovely as Alma Elma was, she was even more beautiful in human form, without the horns and tail.
Tamamo inspected everyone’s look. Granberia, who had the least experience disguising herself, always needed some correction and that morning was no exception.
First was dinner. Since we had diverse tastes, I decided that we should do Golden Corral. Fortunately, Eden had exposed herself in the Orlando Golden Corral. I was not yet banned from the Fort Lauderdale location. Given who I was going with, I wasn’t confident that I’d be welcome back at that location either.
So we all crowded into an Uber, me scrunched between Granberia and Tamamo. Alma Elma wanted to flirt with the driver, so she took the front seat. Erubetie simply poured herself into the trunk, unbeknownst to the driver, who was completely focused on Alma Elma and her impressive cleavage. And occasionally, the road. Tamamo had told Alma Elma to be on her best behavior if she ever wanted to be trusted to go through the portal again, so Alma Elma could only flirt, not surprise him by unzipping his pants and going down on him while he drove. Alice would be most displeased if she lost her husband and all of her Knights in a car accident. Something which would have been a mere inconvenience to my monster companions on their world, but in mine, they injured much more easily.
At the Golden Corral, my friends marveled at the selection. “We can just… take whatever we want? There are no limits?” Granberia asked.
“None,” I replied. “Alice loves this place. There are far better places to eat in terms of food quality, but I don’t think you’ll have any complaints.”
They had none. It was always fascinating to see what they ate. Granberia was a very light eater, something which had always surprised me given the stupendous amount of energy she expended. She ate only a chicken breast and a salad. With some prodding from Tamamo, she indulged in a small cup of ice cream. Tamamo favored steak, chicken, rice, and potatoes, with cookies for desert. Erubetie put a wide variety of things on a plate, many that didn’t seem to go together, and awkwardly ate them since she wasn’t used to eating like a human. Half of her rice fell on her blouse. No one but us noticed as she simply absorbed the rice. Was even her blouse made of slime? Alma Elma chose a small amount of protein, a piece of meat loaf and a chicken tender, and then spent the rest of the meal sampling the sweets. She finished up with an ice cream cone which she took great joy in licking seductively, but I was mostly immune to that distraction after the previous night. Besides, my steak was delicious.
“Wow!” Alma Elma exclaimed as we walked outside to wait for another Uber. “The sweets on this world are top notch!”
“Those aren’t even the good sweets!” Tamamo laughed. “We need to take you to a real candy store, or maybe a bakery!”
“I don’t know that we’ll have time for that tonight, but there’s a 24 hour supermarket here. I can buy you lots of really good treats there.”
“What’s a supermarket?” Alma Elma asked.
“It’s where they sell most of the food on this world,” Granberia explained, proud of her knowledge. This was her fifth trip to my world. She felt like a veteran. Tamamo visited more than any of them, including Alice, mainly to spend my money shopping. She usually brought Nanabi to carry her bags. Nanabi didn’t complain, since she loved serving Tamamo and also received whatever she desired on their forays. Tamamo was extremely generous with my credit card.
The Uber arrived and we headed to the movie theater. The fact that the driver was a woman didn’t stop Alma Elma from flirting. The movie itself, well, reactions were mixed. Erubetie loved it of course. Granberia was bored out of her skull. I had to promise to take her to see an action film. Yet another date scheduled. Tamamo was amused, if not enthralled. Alma Elma didn’t think much of the movie, but thought that the production, sound, and ambience of the theater were incredible.
It was approaching 9pm, so we headed for a local night club. That was the point where I worried most about potential troiuble. On previous trips, Granberia had gotten into fights in places where alcohol was served. I knew that in a club, Alma Elma might do something inappropriate. The fact that she really liked visiting my world would probably keep her in check. Erubetie and Tamamo I had few worries about. The main issue would be how each of them handled men talking to them. They were all sure to be hit on, multiple times. I could imagine many ways in which that could get interesting. Tamamo had the same thought.
“So here are the rules once we get in there,” she said as we stood in line. “No hitting anyone, unless they hit you first. No matter how insulting or annoying they are. No publicly molesting anyone inside the club. If you want to leave with a man, don’t go far. Try to keep it to a quickie in the back seat of their car. You can’t teleport, you can’t contact me with telepathy, and you’re not as strong here as you are back home. Men can hurt you here, although none of them should be a match for any of you as long as you don’t let yourself get taken by surprise or placed in a vulnerable position. Most importantly, try to use good judgment. We are foreigners here.”
“Even more importantly than that,” Granberia reminded them. “If you get into trouble, simply wish yourself back home. Our presence in this world is not stable. We do not belong here. This world will not hold us here a second longer than we wish to be held.”
That went for everyone except me. I only had two ways to get back. Alice could bring me with her, or I could step through the portal, which could only be opened from the other side. Since Alice wasn’t here, I had to make sure I didn’t get involved if the ladies got into trouble. They could disappear from a jail cell. I could not. I tried to imagine Alice’s reaction if they came back without me, forcing Alice to come and retrieve me.
“Let’s just have fun!” Tamamo enthused. “Dance with delicious men!”

We entered the club, assaulted by loud music and flashing lights. The ladies were so beautiful and so worldly looking that they didn’t get carded, which was good because they didn’t have identification. I was carded, of course. We went straight to the bar, where Tamamo busted out my credit card and bought everyone drinks. Granberia only wanted a beer. I just wanted a coke.
Erubetie was the first to acquire a dance partner, leaving Alma Elma somewhat miffed as she sipped her drink at the bar with the rest of us.
“I know that look, Alma,” Tamamo giggled. “She got asked because she’s the least intimidating in her human form. It’ll be a bit before any man approaches us. We’re out of their league. And Granberia, well….”
Ah, Granberia. Even when she was in a good mood, as she was now, she seemed to be glowering. She might be waiting awhile, assuming she even wanted to dance, which was very unlikely. I guess I wasn’t surprised when she left us to go watch an impromptu arm wrestling competition in another part of the club.
“So, Alma Elma,” I said, sidling up next to the succubus. “You seem to like my world.”
“It’s amazing!” she replied. “so many men here smell as delicious as you! There’s so much to see! Please don’t make me wait another ten years!”
I was about to reply when a man approached us. He seemed to be the shy type. I spotted him for a tech guy right away. Looking behind him at a booth, I saw what were obviously his much cooler friends watching with interest. Chances are, this guy had said something very complimentary about Alma Elma, which would have prompted his friends to pressure him to hit on her.
“Can I help you?” Alma Elma said when she noticed him. “Is there something you’d like to ask me?”
“Y… yes,” he stammered. “Would you… like me to buy you a drink?”
“I already have a drink,” Alma Elma replied, holding up her daiquiri.
“Oh… I’m sorry,” he continued. “I don’t… do this much. I’ve never done this, actually. Would you…. Perhaps…. Like to dance?”
“Nah, I’m good,” the succubus replied.
“Oh… sorry to bother you, then,” the poor man said, and walked back to the booth. I understood his situation well. He probably wasn’t too hurt or disappointed, because I doubt that he had expected a positive response. As Tamamo had said, Alma Elma was way out of his league. He and his encouraging friends had estimated that since she was almost sure to turn him down, what did he have to lose?
“Alma Elma,” I said. “Why don’t you dance with that guy?”
“He doesn’t interest me,” she replied. “Not my type.”
“He smells delicious!” Tamamo interjected. “If you won’t dance with him, I will! He seems sweet. A man like that deserves to be shown a great time. And I’m just the woman to do it.”
“Enjoy,” Alma Elma said with studied indifference. She turned and asked the bartender for another daiquiri.
“So who is your type?” I asked.
“That one,” she replied, pointing out a rather handsome, but arrogant looking man who was already getting quite a bit of attention from the ladies. I knew that type as well. Thought he was God’s gift to women. Suddenly, I realized what was happening here.
“Alma Elma! No!” I admonished. “You are not back home. This is not the place to take men down a peg. I’ve always said that you should give nice guys a chance. That guy you just turned away seems like a nice guy. If you’re not interested in mingling, that’s one thing. But you are not here to be a predator.”
“I agree wholeheartedly,” Tamamo added. “That’s a great way for you to get into trouble. Punishing bad men isn’t what you’re here for.”
“I dunno, Granberia seems to be doing a pretty good job,” Alma Elma said pointedly.
I panicked and looked over to where Granberia was. To my relief, she wasn’t in a fight. She had simply chosen to join the arm wrestling contest, challenging man after man and dispatching them with ease. Apparently she was making money doing it as well, judging by the small pile of twenties on the table next to her.
“If you want to arm wrestle guys, go right ahead, “ I offered.
“No, definitely not my thing,” Alma Elma responded. “Fine. I’ll go talk to that guy.”
“You go, girl!” Tamamo said encouragingly. “A nice guy will change your life!”
“I already have a nice guy to play with,” the succubus grumbled as she finished her second drink and rose from her stool.
I replaced Alma Elma on the stool so that I could be closer to Tamamo. In response, Tamamo leaned against me affectionately.
“I’m not really in the mood for the men tonight,” she said. “If it looks like we’re together I won’t have to be annoyed by any of them.”
“Want to talk about it?” I asked.
“In a minute,” she replied, her eyes intent on Alma Elma, who had reached the booth where the man who had approached her sat with his friends. She said something I couldn’t hear, which caused everyone at the table to light up with smiles. Taking the man’s hand, Alma Elma led him to the dance floor.
“Please go easy on him, Alma Elma,” I whispered to myself.
“Fat chance of that,” Tamamo chuckled. “It’s a good thing her sexual magic doesn’t work here. She can’t really hurt him. Much.”
“So how are you doing?” I asked. “I know you and Alice really had it out.”
“She actually told you?” Tamamo asked in surprise. “That’s progress. She usually doesn’t tell you anything.”
“Be nice,” I admonished. “She has her faults but you love her as much as I do.”
“I do,” she sighed. “But I’m so angry! She told no one what she was planning to do to you! I would have stopped it if I’d known.”
“Granberia would have if I hadn’t.”
“She shouldn’t have had to! I thought her wanting you to kill her was the stupidest idea she ever had, but she managed to top it! No, it wasn’t just stupid, it was cruel! Not one of us Knights, not even Alma Elma when she hated you, or Erubetie, could have done something so awful to you!”
We sat in silence for a moment, Tamamo downing the rest of her drink and asking for another. I asked for a coke refill.
“So you’ve told me how you feel about Alice,” I said. “But what about you?”
“I’ll be fine,” she whined. “Being in love with you doesn’t depress me. It’s the fact that I let myself lose control. It’s the fact that I became the bad guy. I do want to marry again someday, but I resolved that I’d never do it the way I did it with Horace. Forcing him to be mine. It seemed like the natural way of things back then. Heck, it seemed the natural way of things just ten years ago! Why did it take me so long to realize that it shouldn’t be that way? Why did it take a young human who knew nothing about anything to teach me that important lesson? And then I go and almost unlearn it in a moment of passion.”
“The crazy things we do for love,” I said offhandedly.
“I like that one,” she said ruefully. “Don’t mind me. Nothing’s going to change between us. I’m just in a mood today. So, see any girls you want to get to know?”
“Maybe,” I said, looking around. “But human women rarely show an interest in me. Besides, I have more than enough women in my life.”
“I’m not asking you to find a girlfriend, just someone to dance with! C’mon, Luka, I’ll be your wingman!”
I sighed. When Tamamo was determined, there was no stopping her.
“All right,” I said. “How about that woman?”
I pointed out a lady who had caught my eye when we had first entered the club. She wasn’t particularly beautiful, but she had an interesting face and seemed to be a very cheerful person. The kind of lady you could have fun with in a club, with no expectation of things going beyond that. Besides, I wasn’t allowed to mess around with humans.
“Okay,” Tamamo said jovially, putting down her drink. “I’m going to go get you that woman!”
Now this I had to see. Tamamo approached the woman, who was with a group of friends, laughing and seeming to be having a great night. Tamamo talked with her for a bit, then came back to where I was sitting.
“Come on,” Tamamo ordered. “You and me are dancing.”
“What happened with the girl?” I asked.
“She’s not interested. Stupid humans! They don’t know a good man when they see one. I have no such problems, however. I didn’t want to dance tonight, but now I want to with you. I want all these people to see you dancing with the most beautiful woman in this club. I want the men to be jealous and the women to wonder what makes you so amazing that you’re with a woman like me.”
She took me out on the dance floor as a slow number was playing. Wrapping me in her arms, she frowned.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Oh, nothing, I was going to put a tail around you, but I forgot I don’t have tails in this form. I hate having to disguise myself as human!”
“Tell me about it,” Granberia said, approaching us. “It’s awkward for me to keep my balance without my tail. How do humans do it?”
“I was going to dance with Luka, but if you want to, you’re welcome to him,” Tamamo offered. Granberia looked like a deer caught in headlights for a moment, before simply walking away without another word. “That’s what I thought!” Tamamo said with satisfaction.
Tamamo was easily the best dancer of the Four Heavenly Knights, probably the only good dancer. Whatever her reservations about having fun that night, she put them aside to make me feel like the most desired man in the building. Her slow dancing was romantic and surefooted. When a more danceable tune came on, she led me expertly, drawing appreciative cheers from some bystanders. When we returned to the bar, she was in a much better mood. Granberia was in a pretty good mood as well, counting her money.
“Luka, is this a lot?” Granberia asked, showing me several twenty dollar bills.
“It’s enough to get you quite a few boxes of popsicles,” I estimated.
“I’m not sure what to do with this,” Granberia said. “It was fun to win it for the sake of the competition, but you always buy me anything I desire.”
“Well, now you have money of your own. Spend it however you like.”
“Hmmmm….” Granberia seemed lost in thought.
“Tamamo, have you seen Alma Elma?” I asked with trepidation. I had spotted Erubetie sitting in a booth with the same man who had approached her. They seemed to be getting along well. But I could find no sign of the succubus. That worried me.
“I know where she is,” Tamamo said confidently. “Don’t worry, of the three of them, she’s the one I’m keeping the closest eye on. I can hear everything in this club. She asked him if he had a car. She’s going to go get a bite to eat in there. Or maybe several bites.”
“Will the guy be okay?”
“Carl will be fine,” Tamamo chuckled. “Her sexual magic doesn’t work here. There’s no critical ecstasy, no energy draining. He’ll look into the back seat of his car and smile for as long as he owns it. Heck, he may never get rid of it!”
Erubetie returned to where we were sitting, singing “It’s Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday.. Looking forward to the weekend….”
“Erubetie, please stop listening to the music here,” Tamamo laughed.
“I like it,” the queen slime retorted. “It’s catchy. Gets stuck in your head.”
“That’s’ part of the problem!” Tamamo laughed.
“Why doesn’t this place play any heavy metal songs?” Granberia grumped. I had turned her on to that kind of music because of the lyrics about battle and glory.
“Clubs don’t usually play metal,” I explained. “Heavy metal is mainly limited to concerts and festivals.”
“You must take me, then,” Granberia demanded. “I wish to see Hammerfall.”
“I guess that’s another date,” I said, smiling.
“How did it go with Walt?” Tamamo asked.
“He gave me his phone number,” Erubetie said, smiling. “I like him. I had considered attempting to eat his semen, but he seemed interested in me as… a person. I think I shall go out with him a few more times before showing him my true nature.”
“Oh, I want to see his face when that happens!” Tamamo laughed. “Good for you, though! You’ll have to report this to Alice. If you get serious with him, we may have to talk about bringing him to our world. Alice would want to have a say in that.”
“Obviously,” Erubetie said. “it is too early to speak of such things, in any case. I shall call him the next time I am ‘in town’. I told him I am not from here, but that I come here on occasion.”
Alma Elma rejoined us around the same time. Carl reentered the club as well, looking quite disheveled and happy. He rejoined his friends to high fives and pats on the back.
“I see you had a good time,” Tamamo observed.
“He’s… nice,” Alma Elma said wistfully. “He actually didn’t want to do it with me. I had to talk him into it. He was interested in me. Like… me, not just my body. Luka, are there a lot of humans like you on your world? You’re not unique?”
“Every person is unique,” I replied. “There are extremely nice men in your world too. The prejudices that existed for most of your life just made it difficult to connect with them. That’s not a problem here. Well, it isn’t a problem as long as he thinks your human. But even if you reveal your true form to him, he has no basis to be bigoted. He wasn’t taught to hate monsters.”
“Oh…..” Alma Elma winced. “I may have changed to my true form once I started in on him. He freaked out at first, but once I got him to believe that I wasn’t the spawn of someone called Satan and that I wouldn’t hurt him, he calmed down. Even liked my true form.”
“See?” I crowed. “No monster hate here. At least not yet.”
“You think that’ll change when monsters start making their presence known on this world?” Tamamo asked.
“I’m afraid so. People in general, whether monster, human, or angel, fear those who are different. Not necessarily as individuals. Carl meeting his first monster is just a novel experience. But once monsters are everywhere, seeming more powerful than humans, that’s when the prejudices will set in. We may even see the local faiths preaching that relations with monsters are sinful. It might get ugly.”
“Good to know,” Tamamo said. “We’ll have to be careful how we handle that. If we even decide to handle it at all. It’s not as if monsters need to come here in large numbers.”
“Yeah, but should my world only be available to a privileged few?” I asked rhetorically. “That doesn’t seem right, either.”
“I see your point, Luka,” Granberia said. “But for the foreseeable future, we can only allow trusted monsters to visit. If a monster should come here and actually harm a human…”
“Who is this Satan, person, anyway?” Alma Elma asked.
“I’ll explain in more detail later,” I chuckled. “Suffice to say that in your true form you resemble a mythical creature, also known as a succubus. Succubi, according to legend, were very dangerous and led men into sin and damnation.”
“That sounds accurate,” Alma Elma said nonchalantly. “But how would people here know about succubi if they never existed?”
“Or dragons?” Granberia added.
“Maybe our two worlds have interacted more than we know,” I speculated.
“Anyway,” Tamamo announced. “While this has been fun, let’s hit that grocery store and go home! Promestein is expecting us back at Luka’s apartment at 1am sharp!”
Another Uber later, our motley crew was wandering a Walmart. This was a first for everyone but Tamamo. The Knights couldn’t believe the abundance, the sheer number of choices. Frozen treats and candy began filling my cart. There was barely enough room in my freezer for the frozen stuff when we arrived back at my apartment around midnight.
“I really like your place, Luka,” Alma Elma said. “It’s cozy. Is this the place where Ilias took you?”
“Yep,” I answered. “Alice took me on that same bed to bond me to her so that I could stay in your world.”
“That bed?” Alma Elma asked, pointing to my room.
“Yep, that bed,” I confirmed. “Why do you ask?”
“Maybe we should put that bed in the Monster Lord’s museum,” Tamamo said. “It’s a very important historical artifact!”
“We have a museum?” I asked. How had I lived in that castle for fifty years and still not seen everything?
“Of course we have a museum!” Tamamo replied. “That place has a ton of history!”
“If the Monster Lord’s castle has a museum, we should let humans see it,” I mused. “Humans and monsters are getting along so much better, but there still isn’t as much understanding as I’d like. If more humans could come to the castle and see your history, your culture….”
“It is an interesting idea,” Erubetie mused. “We should discuss it with the Monster Lord.”
“Right now what we should discuss is what to do for the next hour,” Alma Elma said, looking meaningfully at my room.
“No, Alma Elma,” I said firmly. “None of you can have sex with me in this world. We don’t know what will happen if I’m bonded to one of you instead of, or in addition to, Alice.”
“No, we can’t have intercourse with you here,” Alma Elma corrected. "Anything other than that is fine."
“Tamamo, can you help me out here?” I asked.
“Luka’s right,” Tamamo said gravely. “We have to be very careful when we’re in Luka’s world.”
“Yes,” Erubetie agreed. “We must practice absolute safety. We must be responsible. That is why we have been reluctant to allow you to come here, Alma Elma.”
“Oh,” the succubus said, dejected. “I suppose we can wait until we get back. A whole hour from now….”
Granberia put her arm around Alma Elma. “You cannot always be unserious,” Granberia said. “Our behavior on this world must be impeccably responsible. See, even as we speak, Luka’s freezer is full nearly to bursting. If we do not do something, surely all that we have bought will melt. I can see only one solution. We must eat a box of popsicles!”
“I concur,” Erubetie said. “But so many popsicles alone? If only we had something here that went with popsicles.”
All four Heavenly Knights began looking at me in a very creepy way.
“Now ladies,” I said carefully. “We are in my world. We should discuss this responsibly.”
“I shall go save the popsicles!” Erubetie announced. “The rest of you should prepare the main course!”
Before I could object further I was lifted off the ground by Tamamo, Alma Elma, and Granberia, and carried into my bedroom.
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Luka's Story 4- The problem with gods