Chapter 38: Harem Confrontation

When I returned back to the Sanctuary, I was greeted with a sight that gave me flashbacks to the time in high school where my ex and my then-current girlfriend came face-to-face for the first time. Warning signals were flaring as I studied the tense and irritated faces of my monster girls as they stood out by the field, the rays of a soon-to-be setting sun lighting their backs so that their faces seemed even gloomier.

"What's going on?" I said, trying to be chipper, mentally preparing myself to play the diplomat if needed.

But their angsty eyes all cast themselves on me in unison, with only May Belle beaming smugly whilst the others fumed.

"You have some explaining to do," Autumn said.

"Do I?" I asked innocently, already shuddering from the sharp looks. "What did I do this time?" I tried to play it off with a chuckle, but no one was having it.

Autumn, Daisy, Ivy, and Sprinkle were all glaring at me, occasionally stealing pained or furious glances back at May Belle. I was truly lost, having no idea as to what this fuss was over.

"Well," Autumn started, her arms crossed, her foot tapping on the ground, "I was sharing the reminder with everyone that we've all been leveling up this whole time and should probably spend our Trained Skill points."

"Okay," I nodded. So far nothing earth-shattering.

"And May Belle is level nine."

I blinked. "So what?" I asked with my face scrunched up in confusion. "Is that bad?"

"Not exactly," Autumn said, her brow furrowed. "But Daisy started at the same level, and she's level eight. I started at level ten, and I'm only level twelve now. Ivy only gained one level this whole time."

My mouth fell open in horror as I realized what this was about. It was a judgment day I never thought would come.

"So I'm your favorite, Bucky-Baby!" May Belle gushed. "I knew it."

The logic was straight-forward enough, I supposed. They were basically assuming that I spent more time with May Belle or she otherwise got more XP from me because of an emotional attachment I had with her. Honestly, it was probably the former. May Belle could be pretty demanding, and my need to milk her and Daisy every day had built-in intimate moments that often led to sticky fun time.

I shook my head and waved my hands as May Belle possessively threw her arms around me, eliciting clicks and hisses from the others. "No, no, it's not like that at all," I said. "I wasn't picking favorites, I promise!"

May Belle pouted in disgust. "Don't say that!"

"Sorry, honey," Daisy fumed, her eyes glaring at me with a look not far off from the look a girl gives a guy in the movies when she finds out he cheated on her. "It's a bit hard to believe you at the moment."

"Well, believe me!" I insisted. Fuck. This was spectacularly bad. "Wait, why is Sprinkle even mad? She only just learned what level she was, so we have no idea how much XP she gained with me."

"We started estimating the number of times you slept with us," Autumn said. "Sprinkle came up lowest--"

"After me," Ivy said coldly.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I thought back to my meditation app back on Earth, focusing on the breath visualizer, conjuring that image up in my mind. Maybe if I just inhaled and exhaled properly for long enough, the problem would resolve itself?

That seemed unlikely. The tension was only growing. "Okay," I said after a too-long pause. "I can see how you would come to this conclusion. All I can say is I didn't keep count, and that XP from sex, in my experience, is based on a variety of factors."

"Such as?" Ivy asked.

I chewed my lip before speaking. "Uhhh, well, it might be satisfaction, for one, or maybe... You know what, I can tell this isn't going to help my point. I think the real reason is just that May Belle is the most demanding."

Autumn nodded a concession at that. "She definitely is the neediest."

"Hey!" May Belle shouted, her smug grin fading to a wilting frown. "That's uncalled for."

"Your gloating is uncalled for," Sprinkle growled. "My Bucky, I'm going to be counting from now on."

I gulped hard at that. "This is stress I don't need in my life."

"I don't think that's the solution, Sprinkle," Daisy said, still eyeing me coldly. I wasn't sure where she was headed with that, but I appreciated the start. "He's just going to sneak off to the girls in town instead of spending time with us, worried about the tally." Aaand that just made things even worse.

"I wouldn't do that," I said, "But your general point is correct."

"You wouldn't do that?" Now even May Belle was getting cross with me, her mood apparently soured by my refusal to declare that she was my official favorite. "And where were you just now?"

"I was visiting Vale," I tried to explain, but they all just groaned and smacked their lips vindictively as if I'd made a confession. "We didn't do anything!"

"Oh, so you were just spending time with her?" Daisy asked.

"I was picking up this," I said, pointing to the cloak on my back. "She was having a bad day, so we chatted a bit. That's all."

"But the point still stands," Autumn said. "You have the self-control of a toddler. If she exposed half a tit to you it'd be a very different story you had to tell us, and you know it."

They all glared at me. I stammered for a moment, cooking up a brilliant defensed. What I managed was, "Okay, that may be true, but I promise you're all my favorites, not them."

"Which one of us?" May Belle asked.

"All of you!" I shouted, my voice actually growing frustrated. It was a tone they'd never heard from me, definitely not directed at them, and their collective eyes went wide with shock at the sound. "This is stupid as hell! I don't have a fucking favorite. May Belle chases me the hardest so she gets it the most. End of story. Autumn, you're always so distracted with running the sanctuary and drawing up plans and creating situations like this that we barely have time to screw more than twice a day when you factor in all that bullshit. Daisy, you and I just had a heart-to-heart recently, so the fact that you're giving me this attitude quite frankly hurts." I turned to Sprinkle. "As for you, Sprink, you have the most peculiar tastes. I just worry I can't satisfy you, so maybe that leads me to avoid sex with you until I'm in the right mood. I can admit that I should work on that."

There was dead silence for a solid minute. Daisy kicked her hooves in the grass as everyone waited for someone else to be the first to say literally anything.

"I'm sorry if we overreacted," Autumn grunted at last.

My heart was beating fast from the sheer stress of it, like showing up to a final exam you forgot even existed. Hell, it reminded me of the time I worked at a grocery store, went in on my day off to pick up food for my roommates at the time, and found out that I was actually schedule to work ten hours starting five minutes later.

I still felt backed up against the wall, skeptical that it was truly over, but I nodded, daring to hope that I'd gotten through the worst of it. "It's fine," I said. "I understand why this is all confusing and hurtful. But it actually hurts me that you'd doubt how much I care for each of you. Remember, I'm just one man. I'm doing the best I can."

They all nodded. May Belle bit her lip and took a step back. "We're afraid. That's all."

Hearing that was like a knife in my heart. "Afraid of what?" I asked. "Tell me."

"Being replaced," she said.

"I'm not afraid of that," Autumn said, shaking her head, her arms still crossed.

"It's easy for you to say," May Belle scowled at her. "He needs you. You're his catgirl and emissary."

"I need you, too," I said, grabbing her hand. "Please stop insinuating that my feelings for you are so fleeting and fragile. It honestly stings." I felt tears burning the corners of my eyelids, and I wiped them away on my sleeve, which was covered with sweat and dirt. It only irritated them more.

Her lip turned out like she was going to cry. "I'm sorry! I can't help it!"

"It's not her fault," Daisy said, looking at her sister with a soft, understanding expression. "We've been through more than we ever want to think about again--it's hard for us to know what trust should entail, even if we feel it."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

She looked around at everyone standing around us and shook her head. "Let's just say that you all are the first people we've ever known who didn't treat us as slaves or targets for abuse."

Fuck. There was still so little I knew about all my girls, pained pasts that they all guarded. I realized they all had stories to tell me, but whenever it'd come up, I'd only gotten bits and pieces. May Belle and Daisy's anxiety and neediness around me hinted at some serious damage in their past. I needed to know more about it, I decided, but I wasn't sure how to get that information without putting them through renewed trauma.

Sprinkle, too, had a faraway look in her eyes as the topic of the past came up. Hers was less about abuse and more about loneliness, I was sure, but I was failing to be there for her even still.

"I really need to get to know you all better," I rasped at last, my voice now hoarse from fighting back tears. "It feels insane to say that after everything we've done, seen, and been through in our short time together, but we still have too many secrets from one another."

Autumn sighed. "The old me would say that none of this matters." She paused.

"What does the new Autumn say?" I smirked, genuinely curious to hear the end of that thought.

She smiled back. "That it's about damn time we started sharing."

I nodded. "I want to understand you all so I can avoid letting you feel this kind of anxiety. I care about Tater Town and all its people, but--" I leaned in close, "If push comes to shove, you are my priority. Never forget that."

"I don't want you to neglect or abandon them for us," Daisy said, gesturing toward the town on the hill. "Bonny is very important to me. I love Etherea, too. But... I'd be lying if I said I wasn't glad to hear you say that."

May Belle was still pouting. "Bucky-Baby, I'm really sorry."

"For what now?" I asked, relaxing a bit. Things seemed to be winding down, and let my tensed shoulders slump. "I think everything is clear for now."

She stomped her hoof, irritated with herself, I thought, from the look on her face. "No," she groaned. "I still want to be your favorite. I can't change that. I know it's selfish, but it's all I can think about. It's the only thought that makes me feel secure. I believed it before--now I don't. And it fucks me up so bad."

I frowned. "I don't know how to fix that," I said. "Can't it be enough that I love you?"

She shook her head, though. "Yes, and no. I would never, ever leave you or regret being with you in a million years, Bucky-Baby, but it still stings more than I'd care to admit."

"You're just being selfish," Sprinkle croaked coldly. It was almost funny coming from her--she rarely added to these sorts of discussions. "Us marked girls can share the title."

Ivy frowned. "I'm not marked."

"Neither am I," Autumn noted, putting a hand on Ivy's shoulder for a moment before giving me a pointed glare. "Soon, though, I hope to be. But, Ivy, I'm sorry, I don't know of a way for Bucky to mark you yet."

"There has to be some way," I said, not ready to give up on the idea now that we were discussing these things.

Ivy seemed less certain, though. "Elves are elves. Marking is for monster girls."

"Do elves have an equivalent of marking at least?" I asked. Then I realized how little I knew. "Wait, do elves have males?"

Ivy shook her head. "Elves, like monster girls, are only female in Lusteria," she started to explain. "But--"

"Elves are the progenitors of monster girls," Autumn interjected. "It should technically be possible, not out of the gods' abilities. A long time ago, all monster girls were called Beast Elves."

"Is that true?" Daisy asked, looking like she'd heard something brand new.

Autumn grinned and nodded. "Yes. If it's something Ivy cares about, I can plead with Paragon and Hierophant the next time we're summoned. Who knows? We may get lucky."

Ivy smiled softly but jerked her head 'no'. "That's alright," she said. "I wouldn't want Bucky to waste a feat on something like that."

"It's not a waste," I said, grabbing her shoulder. "If that's what you want--if it'll bring us closer, then I'm all about it."

She grinned back at me like she was trying not to, and it was cute on her gorgeous green elven face. Before I could comment further, I caught a whiff of something--smoke. My head turned and spotted a tall plume of dark gray ash billowing wildly up to the sky.

"There's a fire," I said, nodding in that direction.

"That's strange," Autumn noted, "That's where Jammy's farm is."

"That jackalope girl?" I asked. "That Jammy?"

She nodded. "Yeah. You should go check it out."

I raised my fingers to my lips and blew a high-pitched whistle. Blue descended from the clouds, detecting the emergency, and I hopped atop the dragon-steed's scaly back and took to the sky. I wasn't sure what I was up against--but with the cape, I should be alright. It was probably just an accident. Hopefully Jammy would be okay. Certainly wearing the armor would be overkill, I told myself. Being fast seemed to be the better choice.

"Be careful!" I heard one of the girls shouted from below. I looked back and saw them waving, worried looks on their faces.

I was certain that whatever it was that I was about to encounter that it would be no issue--though I probably should have brought Sprinkle or Ivy along at the very least. Hindsight's twenty-twenty.

As the farm came into sight, though, I realized quickly that I was a bit more out of my depth than I'd originally dared to imagine.

"Well, fuck," I groaned, taking stock of the devastation and the creature that caused it. "How do you feel about fighting other dragons, Blue?"