I Own a Brothel in Another World

Chapter 49 – Like the Good, Old Times

Some weird nudges wake me up. Opening my eyes, I judge it is early morning, an hour or two before we planned to end our peaceful slumber. My gaze falls onto the adorable dwarf lying by my side, slightly curled into herself. I notice the uncomfortable expression on Sirgia’s face and some occasional shivering. She must have hit me during one of the trembles. I don’t need to be an expert in body language or a mind reader to realize that she is having a nightmare.

I place a hand on her warm back and pull Sirgia closer to hug her tightly, at the same time using the other one to slowly brush through her hair with as much gentleness and care as I can muster. Her face relaxes a little bit, but the small tremors still persist for a while longer before her breathing calms down and she rests her head on my chest.

Soon after, Sirgia opens her eyes and glances up. Looks like my caresses did a bit more than just calming her down. I smile at her while keeping my hand on the back of her head.

“Morning. Bad dream?”

She looks back down. “Uhn. I’m sorry for waking you up, Master.”

With a sigh, I pull her face back up by her chin and rest my forehead against hers.

“Don’t be. I’d rather not sleep than have you like that by my side. Everything okay?”

Sirgia shows a faint smile. “Yes. Thank you. It was just a memory from… the tortures…” she explains, moving her hand towards her left eye and touching the whitish scar with her fingers.

I grab them into my grasp and rub the back of her palm reassuringly. “I will never allow something like that to happen to you again. I promise. And don’t worry about that scar, I—”

A gentle peck on my lips halts the words before they manage to come out. Sirgia lovingly plants small kisses on my mouth, with a cute smile. I let myself be lost in the pleasurable, little tingles the short and soft connections make. After a moment, she finally backs away.

“I’m not worried about it. It’s a reminder of one of my most precious moments with Master. I don’t want to get rid of it. Ever,” she says and pulls herself as close as she can to snuggle to me affectionately.

While doing so, her petite hand grazes over my chest, going lower and lower. I notice her gaze also dropping again. Sirgia's fingers stop under my navel, just short of the material of my shorts. She waits for a moment before moving further and brushing over the visible protrusion in the form of a lying log. Then, she retracts her hand a bit and slides her fingers under the strap, lifting the covers just a little.

“It’s so hard…” she mutters. 

That was obvious just from looking at the visible bulge. There was no need to lift the material up. I chuckle a little.

“Don’t tell me that Dwarves don’t get morning wood.”

Sirgia giggles, leaving my underwear alone. “It’s not like I have ever seen one, but I think they do.” She sits up and glances down at me. “It will be uncomfortable for you to walk like this. It’s my responsibility to help relieve Master of this tension.”

I sigh while shaking my head and also raise myself, leaning towards her again. We exchange a slightly more intimate kiss as I brush my hand over her slim waist. The sight of such a lovely and petite girl sitting in front of you just in cute panties is like an exotic dream. And I get to see this dream every time we sleep together.

“There’s no need,” I say after we finally separate. “It will go down soon. Come on, we have lots of things to do today.”

Sirgia uses her strength to push me back down onto the bed and playfully grabs my arms as if she is locking me in place.

“No can do, Master. Like you relieved me from my struggle, I should also help with yours, so please, let me return the favour,” she says while staring straight into my eyes, averting hers after a moment. “Besides… Master’s buff… would certainly be helpful to my work…”

There’s not much I can do here. I can’t be so heartless to decline such a request. I peck her lips once more and decide to go with it.

“Okay. It’s all yours. Just don’t strain yourself like the last time.”

Sirgia smiles and lets go of my arms. “I won’t make the same mistake twice. I have my pride as an artificer!” She puffs out her small chest and moves down to my waist.

She wastes no time and slides my underwear off, releasing the completely awake beast from its cage and it springs up happily. Before acting in any way, Sirgia stares the lewd tower down as an even wider smile makes its way to her lips. She lays herself down onto her belly from my side and moves closer to the twitching pole.

Her petite hands soon start prodding the tender meat before she begins to lovingly graze the shaft with them. As they slide up and down, she leans closer and touches the lowest part of the structure with her lips, leaving a gentle peck on it. Then, she peppers the whole length with quick kisses until she reaches the top of this pulsating mast.

Letting her tongue out, Sirgia starts giving the glans careful licks all around while using her hands to pleasure the other parts. One is pumping the shaft, squeezing it at uneven intervals, and the other focuses on massaging the bag holding the precious jewels.

She glances my way and our eyes connect. I give her a thumbs up and try to show a satisfied smile. Seeing that, Sirgia doubles her efforts and increases the pace, leaving the tip alone for a moment. Instead of focusing completely on the rest of my cock as I thought, she pulls herself a bit closer and supports her body on her elbows. Next, she opens her mouth wide and very carefully takes my dick inside from above.

“Ughhhh…”

It’s only the tip that went in, but that’s already plenty. Her tongue starts energetically swirling over it while she tries to apply pleasurable sucks along the way. And her hands don’t slow down in the slightest, still pumping the rod or playing with my balls. She does it way better than the last time. The difference is like night and day. The glans doesn’t graze over her teeth even once in a whole minute of her amazing performance.

“Haaaaah… How did you get so good at blowjobs? Nhhhhn...” I ask and moan slightly when Sirgia’s tongue starts intensely tickling the spot just under the head of my penis.

She gives it one more, strong suck and guides the staff out of her mouth, again, without any discomfort for me. She blushes heavily while dropping her gaze, sending me only some side glances. She keeps the massage up.

“Ummm… It’s… embarrassing to say…'' she speaks in a quiet tone.

I chuckle. “Talking is embarrassing but sucking a cock isn’t?”

“It’s different…”

“If you don’t want to answer, then that’s fine.”

She shakes her head. “No... I… I kind of… created a replica of Master’s penis…”

I raise my brow. Now, that is something I did not expect to hear in the slightest. I’m not sure how I feel about that fact. Suddenly a random thought surges into my mind and the whole process of Sirgia making copies of my dick and us then proceeding to sell those toys in an on-site store, getting them so popular that there’s not a single girl in the kingdom that isn’t dreaming of getting her hands on one, flashes in front of my eyes. 

「Good gods… That’s so weird… Hahahaha...」

The increasingly red face of clearly waiting for response Sirgia brings me back from my fantasies.

“And? How does that relate to my question?” I ask, even though I can already guess the answer.

“After the first time… I wanted to practice making you feel better with my mouth… so that I don’t cause you pain… and then I got the idea to craft an imitation of your penis… so one night I hid a special, mana-sensitive mould under the bed, snuck into the room when you were sleeping and… played a bit with your thing and shaped the form when it was hard… Safi and Emi helped me a little...”

As I listen to the story step by step, I grow more and more surprised. I would have never suspected my shy, little dwarf to go sneak into my room and pretty much take measurements of my dick while I am out. That also explains the weird, chilly feeling I had around my crotch after waking up one day. Honestly, I’m amazed. But it looks like it’s not all.

“After that, using the techniques and ideas you showed me… I recreated it with an elastic material… and since then… I’ve been using it to practice and train my mouth… I’m sorry…” She apologizes sincerely as if she had done something really bad and insulting.

“Sirgia. Come here,” I call to her and she stops the caresses to move up.

I pull her towards my chest and let her lie on it while I go for a deep kiss. I intrude on her mouth without a warning and our tongues clash with each other. I fiercely explore her insides while also embracing her back with my hands. Her cute, warm breasts press onto my skin and I think she begins to rub herself up and down on me.

Finally releasing the poor dwarf from my clutches, I leave Sirgia slightly panting.

“I am a little shocked at this revelation, but on the other hand, I’m much more impressed that you came up with such a thing and even pulled it off. So, you have my full permission to use it however you like, be it for licking or having some fun when I’m not around. Honestly, that was such a surprise, you little vixen.” I laugh a little and playfully pinch her cheeks.

She giggles happily. “Thank you. I still think the original is incomparable. I haven’t tried putting it in down there yet, but I would much rather just wait to do it with you again instead.” She pecks me once more. “Let me show you the results of my training, Master.”

I let her go and Sirgia crawls back to the lower part of my body. She sits on her knees by my waist and resumes her caresses using both hands to stroke the shaft this time, and takes the tip back inside her mouth. A little shiver rushes through my body after I feel her warmth around my dick again.

Her tongue is now back in action, joyfully coiling around the glans and she slides my cock inside, bit by bit more until it pokes the back of her throat. Impressive. By now, she would have normally panicked at least a little and forcefully closed her mouth, but instead, she begins moving back and forth, giving me a truly proper blowjob. She really must have spent a lot of time on this.

“Huuuh… You really exceeded my expectations… That’s some pro—ngh?!”

She stops bobbing her head, takes back her hands and takes my dick as far as she can until it hits her throat again. At first, I assume that she’s just going to switch moves or something, but Sirgia suddenly begins very slowly pushing my cock even further in, and I’m interrupted mid-sentence as the sensation of my rock-hard penis sliding down her moist tunnel hits my brain.

It takes her a while, but she actually manages to gobble my whole damn dick up to the very root. The insane pleasure of my rod being squeezed by her unimaginably tight canal assaults my whole body and mind, resulting in the thick rod furiously twitching in excitement. I can clearly feel every single tremble due to having my meat surrounded by the fleshy walls of her small throat. I have not a single clue how she doesn’t gag with all of this, but the struggle is clearly visible on her strained face, with tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

If that wasn’t enough, while deep-throating my whole cock, she uses one hand to knead my jewels even more and moves the finger of the other one to softly tickle my anus. I already was not that far from getting off even before we had that little break to talk, but with all this, my dick is pulsing so hard I’m going to explode at every possible moment.

“Ohhhh, fuck meee… Sirgia! Pull up! Nhhhhhnnngggg! I’m going to cum!” I grunt at her as fast as I can.

She’s already past her limits and she doesn’t need me to additionally flood her throat with cum. It could end badly. Fortunately, she listens and I watch as her visibly bulging throat slowly returns to its former shape while she fulfils my request.

“Shiiiiiit…”

That movement evokes even more pleasure and I focus my all on the Title’s effect to not bust a nut midway. Seconds feel like hours, but she finally reaches the top and as soon as I sense my glans on her tongue in between her cheeks, I release all of the pent-up desire and shoot multiple waves of milky-white liquid straight into her mouth, each one even more ferocious than the previous load.

Sirgia still keeps licking and sucking, trying to increase the height of my orgasm even more, taming the wild beast which is assaulting the inside of her cute lips. After a moment, I finally stop twitching and spewing more of the creamy delicacy. I feel a careful lick coil around my glans and she frees my penis with a loud pop. Soon after, I watch as Sirgia cutely swallows all of my semen in little gulps. She then shows a proud smile. It would be great if there weren’t any tears flowing down her flushed cheeks.

I raise myself instantly and pull her into a hug, giving my lovely dwarf a gentle kiss.

“You little… Should have warned me about this. Do you think I’m blind?” I brush those wet spots off her face. “I told you to not take it too far.”

She nuzzles her face into my collarbone. “Sorry. I really wanted to do this for you. And it wasn’t painful. The tears came out from me holding the gagging back. Was it bad?” she asks concernedly.

“No, it was incredible. Just please, let me know beforehand about things like this. Surprises are nice, but can also be scary. I appreciate your effort though. I could feel how much work you put in that,” I say while patting her head.

“It’s natural, because… I love you, Master,” she whispers.

“I know. I love you too, my cute, little dwarf. You really don’t need to prove it this hard.”

We stay cuddled up together for a few moments longer before heading to my personal shower for a quick wash. To return the returned favour, I spend some time to take good care of her hair, glancing at her status window on the side and confirming that she got a 30% buff from her performance. 

「I have a feeling that at some point this might be a daily occurrence if the duration doesn’t rise in the future. Well, I don’t mind. I should start distributing kisses to my lovely partners already. Damn. This sounds so wrong and… capitalistic. But hey, it’s free stats.」

Since it’s still shortly before the main breakfast hour, we prepare something together. It always makes Sirgia happy and I love seeing her smile. During the meal, the atmosphere is way better than I expected. It’s not even close to the silence and tension from when Teffith joined. Astrea still looks wary, but listens to others' suggestions and even talks a little bit. Cornelia sends me a wink and I assume she had something to do with that during the time I felt her speaking yesterday.

Everyone, of the key members of this household, knows that we are open again tonight and leave to take care of their own stuff before we gather together before evening. I so wish I could head to Selina’s already, but it would be improper when we both agreed on the date. The lack of personnel bugs me more than before after the talks I had with girls, especially Elea in the bath. 

No use thinking about it now. I should be figuring out other ways to get more people in. I could venture out in search of monstergirls… No. Not until I can leave this place without any worries. But that certainly is a plan. I could take different people with me on various trips. That would be a huge morale boost. And we are adventurers in the end. But again, I need to set things up here properly. If the new business with Selina works out, it will help. I can’t steal employees from the base when we barely have any.

I walk around the mansion while coming up with different ideas on what to do. Well, at least I try to as my mind repeatedly returns to a single thought every now and then. My dick. Or rather, the clone of my dick. I just can’t stop thinking about Sirgia’s creation. Guess I’ll go down and have her show it to me or I won’t be able to focus properly. Geez, I’m such a weirdo. Why do I even have this urge to see it?

But on my way there, I stumble on Cornelia taking a stroll in one of her casual, dark blue robes.

“Oh, hi. How is it going?” she asks.

I stop by her side. Why not chat a little. “Hard. But Sirgia already took care of that.” I grin at her.

She furrows her brows for a moment before her eyes widen in realization and she sighs ostentatiously. “Goddammit…”

“Don’t be sad. I promise I’ll come to you next time I have that problem,” I say jokingly.

“What?! Get out of your bubble. It’s not like I want to shove your dick into my mouth while I'm being tie—… shit...”

“Hahahaha, too easy.” I chuckle.

“Ugh.” She slaps her forehead. “Seriously, it’s like you know exactly what to say to make me slip—”

I don’t let her finish and seal her lips with mine, diving for a deep kiss. Slightly startled, Cornelia quickly reciprocates the action and we get entwined in a short show of loving affection. I have no idea why, but interrupting someone with a kiss is weirdly satisfying. 

She breaks it off with a smile. “You are even more straight-forward than usual. Was she really that good?”

“Uhh, I guess she did play a trick or two on me. But I just thought we should make use of my Class more often. Ah, but it’s not like I kissed you just so that you can get a few more stat points. I have an urge to do so every time I lay my eyes on your exquisite hazelnut hair and brilliant face,” I let her know both truths.

Cornelia blushes visibly and pecks my cheek. “You flirt. You know damn well that I would be up for this juicy bonus nevertheless.”

I smirk at her. “Perhaps.”

She chuckles and playfully boops my nose. “Okay. What are you up to right now? Are you busy?”

“Not really. I was just heading down to meet Little Johnny’s younger brother.”

Cornelia again furrows her brows and attempts to figure out if that’s another one of my cheesy jokes while I intently observe her reaction. Her mouth opens just a little at some point and she knows well that I noticed.

“Sirgia?” she asks.

“So, you knew?”

“Perhaps.”

“Shit. 1-1.”

We both laugh after my comment.

“Yeah, I did. She showed me the form before the attempt. The whole operation was so well-planned to every smallest detail it could rival our raiding one. I was actually curious what your reaction would be after you learned about this,” she says.

“Surprise. Shock. Disbelief. Amazement. Pride.”

“Pride?” she asks curiously.

“Hey, someone made a mould out of my cock for their personal use. What kind of man wouldn’t have his ego stroked with that? Well… maybe if they learned that it was another man…”

“Hahahaha. I see. I think I get it. Thanks.” She does her best to tame the chuckle. “Alastair v2 can wait a bit. He won’t run away. Not with Sirgia watching over him, hahaha.” Which doesn’t really work when she keeps following with more jokes. “Anyway, the thing I would want to discuss is actually kind of connected to that area. Now that I think about it… isn’t everything connected to it with the type of business we are dealing in?”

「Uh, oh. She’s getting too much into this little joking session.」

“Possibly. But, how can I help you?” I interrupt Cornelia before she switches into a higher gear.

“Ah, yes. With Safi and Emi there’s no issue when they work, but as we both are aware, one plus one equals two when it comes to man and a woman,” she says with a smile.

I chuckle again. She just doesn’t let go. “Yeah. That’s kinda natural. For most races at least, I think?”

“Yes. And that’s why I was working on researching some useful magic to prevent our family from growing in that aspect. Why rely on expensive pills from the Alchemy Guild, or some shady ateliers, when we can work something out ourselves, making it pretty much free if we exclude the initial investment.”

I raise a hand. “Hold on. You want to create anticonception magic? Like, a general spell and not an ability similar to mine?”

“Not really create. I’m pretty sure there was one back in the days before meds started to be popular and common. I won’t be trying to invent something new, I just plan to do some research in the Royal Library and hope to find enough hints to maybe resurrect it or revamp completely. I thought about asking for your help with this. You know more languages than me and your otherworldly knowledge could be a huge factor,” she explains everything about her idea.

I ponder while rubbing my chin. That would certainly lower our operating costs in the long run. And if she says it already existed in the past, someone as talented as Cornelia has a chance to actually figure this out.

“I’m down. We don’t have that much time today so let’s get going.”

“Sure. Thanks a lot. I don’t think we’ll deal with it so quickly but just starting is good,” she smiles and hugs me.

“Don’t mind it. You are doing all of that pretty much for me even if you say otherwise.”

I give her one more kiss and we depart soon after, taking a trip through the underground tunnel. Without any further ado, we head straight for the library. On our way there, we talk about where we should start. I suggest the restricted area and the section that deals in body modification while Cornelia suggests we start in the open records on the life aspect as that kind of magic shouldn’t have been hidden from the public.

We decide to check both a little since we won’t have enough time to dive deep enough in either and we start with the unrestricted zone. After going through tens of shelves together, we gather books that sound related to our topic and sit by each other’s side to start going through them. To make it more efficient, I focus on those in languages she doesn’t know while my wise magician zooms through the other ones.

This reminds me of my time spent in the library back when our group was in training. Especially of the parts where Cornelia joined me just like this. Who would have thought that we would be in a situation like that again?

She catches my reminiscent smile and asks about it so I reveal my thoughts to her. Blushing a little, she pulls me closer to give me a small kiss and we return our focus to the task in front of us.

Two hours pass in an intense battle of our eyes versus countless lines of text and sigils. I go through so many races’ scripts that I didn’t even remember actually knowing some of them. I know I gobbled tens of languages, I can forget that they existed and still have them mastered, right? Right. Maxed Linguist is such a cheat.

There is not that much useful stuff we find out in the books about Life magic, which is heavily linked to Holy, Nature and somehow Curse and Void magic. I guess life is close to death and those are like the opposites? Whenever we catch something sounding close to our topic, I help Cornelia take extensive notes on it so that she can later work at home on the spell or magic.

I ask her if she wouldn’t want a research lab down under and she says that while it would be nice, it’s not that necessary and I should focus on Sirgia’s alcove as she also visits her often to make use of some appliances there. I promise Cornelia to make it happen someday for sure. She ends our short chat on the note of me being just too kind and considerate.

We dive again into the mental struggle. All in all, some of the books help me understand many aspects of Nature, Holy, Curse and Void magic much better. And that’s really good. Like, I personally am somehow connected to the last one and Elea is our expert in the first. I’m not sure about Curse, I have a feeling that it’s quite close to Void though, but nevertheless, Holy is what Kamil is specialized in and it’s always welcome to learn more about them. Actually… I think Shino had something to do with curses. This is great. I wonder how they are doing right now.

Anyway, if we ever meet again and they will have some questions about those fields or perhaps need help with understanding their skills, I should be at least a little useful in that situation. Ugh. I still have this teacher mentality. Doesn’t look like it will ever just go poof someday. 

Well, I don’t think it’s bad. I lived most of my adult life like that and it certainly could be called decently successful. Maybe besides the relationship part. But I’m slowly catching up on that. Yeah. Slowly. Ha. Gods, is this karma? I don’t think I’ve done or suffered enough to deserve all this though. Besides a small part of my childhood. Okay, maybe it was a little fucked up, but certainly, many other people had it way worse. Okay, enough sidetracking, Cornelia is counting on me, full focus. 

In an hour more, we finish the batch of books we gathered. There seem to be some useful notes and traces or mentions of the spell from long ago, but I don’t think we’ve stumbled on any key parts. I certainly hope this is not on a level of some ancient magic though, like the whole thing with my draconic hilt. That would be… tough.

We take a short break and resupply lost calories and strength in the nearby cafeteria, chatting about what we went through as we eat. She says that it definitely is not enough. Our next move should be checking out the restricted area. Maybe my guess will be more successful.

To get there, we, of course, have to add one more member to our small party. It so happens that it’s exactly the same lady that accompanied me the last time I made my way into the limited section to look for information on slavery seals. She seems surprised to see me with one of the royal magicians. 

We go in and repeat the process of selecting books. I ask the girl for some input and she points out a few more positions she thinks could have a chance of being useful. Inquiring more about our goal, we explain to her what we are looking for and she blushes slightly while looking at us in turns. I’m sure Cornelia does too but tries to act calm and composed. I won’t tease her like this. I do have limits and she has her reputation in the castle too. I choose a good moment to send her a Whisper assuring her about that and she gives me a beautiful smile.

Then, we get back to work. Three-man-team this time. I sit on her side as previously, and our temporary supporter places herself on the opposite side of the table. I again focus on works in languages unknown to Cornelia. The girl seems slightly amazed with the speed of the two of us going through the writings and making our own scribbles. Ha. Don’t underestimate professional nerds at work. You have no idea how many chapters a day I was able to go through back at home when I got into a novel reading spree.

Two hours fly by and we actually get much more little details than from the public zone. At least twice, I would say. Seems like body modification was the right path to follow. From what we gathered, it definitely doesn’t look like that magic was heavily intrusive in one’s anatomy but most likely temporarily tampered with certain reproductive organs for the duration of the effect. For males, it most likely ‘disabled’ the ability of sperm cells to fertilize the egg, and for females, exactly the same but mirrored, with the ability to get fertilized.

That’s just my general impression though. We will have to spend some more time on all the data we collected. The hardest part will be to actually figure out all parts of the original spell. Or restructure it as Cornelia suggested. But I believe in her. In us. We should still make use of the chance we have today and do more research. But before that, I notice Cornelia cracking her neck to the sides.

I stand up and move behind her. She follows me with her eyes.

“Let me give you a hand. I might not be an expert, but I know a thing or two about relaxing those muscles. Most teachers in my organization were offered courses to dabble a bit in this a little. You know, desk work,” I say and place my fingers on her shoulders.

She nods and straightens her back. Now, as I said, I’m no masseur, but I follow the steps that were drilled into my muscle memory during those lessons. I kept giving small massages to a few other teachers back on Earth. 

Cornelia lets out a sigh and even releases a faint moan as I press and rub certain spots. After a moment, she surrenders all of herself to me and just focuses on enjoying the pleasant nudges. The moans and little oh’s and ah’s increase, but fortunately, she still keeps her voice relatively low. Five minutes later, I finish my job and she sighs in relief once more.

I sit down again and Cornelia instantly grabs me by the collar and pulls me into a passionate kiss, completely ignoring the innocent bystander. Well… maybe not that innocent. I can see in the corner of my eye how she bites on her lip with a slightly… jealous expression? Ah. She was kinda all over me the last time due to the Title’s effects. Right. What can I say? Sucks to be her.

My beautiful magician parts our lips after showering me in enough affection and gives a very ladylike chuckle.

“Ufufu~. Thank you. Remind me to return the favour later.” She sends me a wink and we return to work. At least the two of us. I think the other one is a little too frustrated to continue.

In the next hour, we gather what else we can about the structure of the possible magic this time. Our six-hour-long research was quite a bit more fruitful than either of us expected. Obviously, this doesn’t mean anything yet as this is just the first step, but I can already see Cornelia going through days and nights over this like Sirgia tends to do.

And that’s fine. If the new girls will be able to work not that long after getting recruited, we may need this magic. Naturally, we should stock at least a bit of the current era meds in case we can't revive it in time. But I think our new workers will need a few lessons with me first and to accustom themselves to the atmosphere anyway. 

Gods. That sounds like I want to have dibs on them before they enter the services department. I swear that’s not the case. Not like I care about such a thing. The more they know, the easier and more comfortable for them. And now I sound like a teacher again. What the hell. I guess I am one. Never imagined I would teach sex though.

We pretty much vacuum piles of notes into our spatial storage rings and head out. Our supervisor follows until we reach the desk of the librarian stationed near the entrance to the restricted section. She bows to us and shows me a wry smile with a side glance. I think Cornelia noticed it as she entwines our elbows and pretty much walks me out of their sight. I give a peck on the cheek of my bully queen and she giggles in response.

It’s shortly after 1 pm when we arrive home. I do a quick checkup on everyone, but there doesn’t seem to be any issues that came up when we were gone, so I head to Cornelia’s room to unload our cargo completely and help her somehow organize the flood of papers. It takes us almost an hour and her chamber turns into an evidence investigation space with all the scribbles over every piece of wall and furniture. Even most of her bed is covered.

I sit down on the unobstructed part and she does the same close to me.

“You know, if you use up the whole mattress, you can stay at my place for the time being,” I say teasingly.

She chuckles, stands up and sits on my lap sideways, throwing her arms around my neck.

“I would happily take you up on that offer, but I suspect that the only time I will actually enter the dreamland will be when I fall asleep over this extensive project,” Cornelia replies with a smile.

“Guess I now have two people to regularly check on and force breaks onto.”

I lean forward and we start to exchange soft kisses, which soon develop into more passionate ones, but still on the edge of gentleness. Cornelia lightly nibbles on my lips here and there as we are engaged in our little fun. I begin moving down and peppering her beautiful neck with a myriad of pecks and she giggles adorably. I earn myself a playful slap after leaving a hickey at one spot. She brushes over it with her fingers with a loving smile.

She can get rid of it with just a bit of magic, so it’s not an issue in any way. I do feel like she wouldn’t do that unless something really important was happening, like a meeting with the Queen. Okay, not the Queen. She would gladly show up with it to her. Maybe the King.

We cuddle for a little more before I politely leave her to have a different kind of fun with all those notes. I instruct Cornelia to call me whenever she needs anything and to rest at least a tiny bit before we open in the evening hours. She sneaks a hickey on my neck too and promises me to be a good girl. We chuckle together and I leave the room.

The moment I’m out, Neira enters my vision. And she clearly has been waiting here for me. She bows a little and skips towards me with a refined step. I wonder what she needs. Time to check on my favourite artist. Well, maybe after Shino, but it’s not like she created any new pieces. I think.