Terrible Company

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Author's Note

: This story, Terrible Company, is sprawling sword-and-sorcery fantasy satire with a diverse cast of characters. Over its many chapters, those characters will have interactions (both with each other and others) that cross many of the lines that exist between Lit genres. I have come to believe that breaking the story into those different categories, as best I can, is the best way to expose the most readers to parts of the story they might dig, and that they might then be encouraged to read on.

Each chapter is written as a self-contained episode, and although there are running gags that continue through the series that enrich the experience, they shouldn't prevent one from starting anywhere in the series (including the final chapter) and enjoying it for what it is.

This chapter briefly mentions:

Val, the female Orc Warrior/Fighter

Katsa, the female Human Arcanist

Mathilda, the female Dwarf Healer

Ayen, the male Half-Elf Thief

Ivy, the female Human Bard

However, for the most part, the cast of characters in this chapter are not regulars. This one is an oddity, but I swear it'll all make sense in the end!

Enjoy!//

Hamish grumbled as he slammed his mug down on the table. "It's not fair."

"Hardly," The Narrator slurred, from the other side of the table. Hamish paused, slowly leaning forward as it looked like his friend was going to say more, but the elderly man merely blinked and stared.

"I mean, what more can I do?" The thin Human frowned and furrowed his brow. "You know?"

The Narrator gesticulated with his goblet. "My boy, there are times when even the most stout-hearted falter." Even as deeply inebriated as he was, and The Narrator had surely put many sheets to the wind already, his resonating baritone still carried a sense of grandeur and mystique that enraptured all within earshot. It was a quality Hamish admired and had often commented on, although he was too drunk to see much past his own problems just then.

"Who doesn't love a good quasi-incestuous dub-con Gnome romance?" Hamish took another swig from his mug and shook his head while he swallowed. "It's timeless!"

"Nothing captures the heart like gnomes in love." He planted his index finger on the table, and stared seriously. "They are the truest souls that have ever walked this earth."

"See? You get it!"

"That I do," the elderly man boomed, nodding solemnly. "On my best days, I aim to match a mediocre Gnomish poet."

"Are you d-d-doing any writing anymore, or is it mostly just the sex thing?"

"It's not '

just the sex thing'

." The Narrator puffed up indignantly. "I'm adding a whole new layer to what are already the most intimate moments in people's lives."

Hamish shrugged allowingly, and sulked. "I don't understand why I'm not selling better. I mean, I feel like I'm checking all the boxes."

"You simply need to continue doing what you're doing." The Narrator's serious tone was only

slightly

undermined by an untimely hiccup. "Every great artist knows they have to put in the time, honing their craft, before they can really make something of themselves."

"But I've already written

two

novels!"

"

One

novel," the older man said with an arched eyebrow, "barely, and

one

short story."

"Oh whatever."

"Don't get me wrong; I like your work. Always have."

Hamish rolled his eyes and nodded reluctantly.

"Let's talk about something more pleasant. What has Ebba been up to?"

"Mostly just sleeping with the landlord."

"Oh," The Narrator said, backpedalling.

"We agreed she should do it to lower our rent, but... I'm starting to think she likes it more than she lets on."

"Oh..."

"She hasn't been coming home at the end of the day as much..."

"

As much?

"

"...and the rent is starting to go back up. She must be losing her touch."

The Narrator's right eyebrow attempted to escape past his hairline. "Does she... does she seem like she's losing her touch

to you

?"

"I'm not really sure," Hamish mused. "It's been a while. She proposed a new rule about no touching until the novel is done. You know, to help me with my writer's block."

"How

noble

of her." The sarcasm flew well over Hamish's head, soaring through low clouds where it struck an unsuspecting crow in mid-flight. Its tiny body plummeted out of the bottom of a cloud of black feathers and, as the ground rushed up to meet it, the bird's final thought was '

I think I left the oven on!

' Meanwhile, the irony of murdering a crow flew through the upper stratosphere, completely unnoticed by all.

The Narrator drained his cup and blinked slowly. "How long is 'a while'?"

"I dunno. Six months?"

"Oh Hamish..."

"I mean, it

sort of

helped with the writer's block. I got my manuscript done, but—"

"Ok. Stop." The Narrator shook his head, sending slow waves through his long, white hair. "I really shouldn't be doing this. I shouldn't... but you're my friend."

"Doing what? Drinking?"

"I'm going to let you in on a secret."

"There are drinking secrets?"

The Narrator pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. "A writing secret." He waved two fingers at Hamish, and the two of them leaned over the table toward each other conspiratorially. "Do you know what the big authors have that you don't have?"

"If I knew that," Hamish whispered, in a burst of lucid clarity, "I don't think we'd be having this conversation."

"It's their name."

The writer sat back and shook his head. "I know. I know. I need to put in the time, and get my—"

"To the hells with all of that. I'm talking about their

names

." Hamish leaned further over the table, brows low over his eyes, and listened. "Haven't you ever noticed what the really big ones all have in common?"

"Vowels? No, I have those too."

"It's the R." The Narrator nodded sagaciously, and gestured for the barkeep to bring them another round.

***

Hamish blinked slowly as he stared at the ceiling. The sunlight was coming in from a strange angle, making the whole bedroom unconscionably bright. He groaned and tried to shield his eyes, but a weight had his arm trapped beside him. He groaned again and turned, as he struggled to refocus his eyes, and was surprised to see Ebba writhing happily.

"Mmmmm," she murmured throatily. "Good morning."

"Morning?"

That would explain the weird angle of the sun

, he thought. "What are you... What are you..." He brought up his left hand and rubbed at his eye. "How come you're not downstairs?"

"Don't you remember?" she giggled. The sheets shifted as she stretched her legs, and she bit her lip. Dark brown curls obscured her face. "Last night was insane."

"Yeeeah," he drawled, answering more instinctively than because he actually remembered, and his eyes unfocused as he tried to summon the memories. There were flashes, here and there, but the last thing he could keep hold of was sitting with his friend at the tavern. "You were..."

"I know," she said, blushing and trying to hide it by burying her face in the pillow. "But I couldn't help myself."

"Me either," said a second woman, as she propped herself up on her elbow and peeked over Ebba's shoulders. Her voice was deep, and a little gravelly while still being distinctly feminine.

Had he been a bit more collected, Hamish would have been shocked to the point of disbelief at the sight of not just one woman in his bed, looking extremely satisfied, but two. He quickly sat up, slipped his arm out from beneath Ebba, and looked around to make sure there weren't other women he didn't know about. "...Right. I'm sorry. Who are you?"

"Yvonne," the curvy blonde said, as she twirled a few locks between her fingers.

"Right. Of course. Sorry I forgot."

"It's not that you forgot," Yvonne purred. "It's that you didn't ask. Not once, about anything, and I loved every second of it."

"Baby," Ebba said, as she shifted, "I don't know where all that came from, and honestly, I don't care."

"All

what

came from?" he squeaked.

Ebba laughed and stretched again. She grabbed the sheet between her toes and flexed at the ankle, which resulted in baring both her and Yvonne from the waist up. Hamish's eyes nearly fell out of his sockets. Ebba was a gorgeous woman, well-endowed by any definition, but she had a kind of classical beauty to her. Gifted with cheekbones any artist would be lucky to paint. He'd written thousands upon thousands of words in ode to her and, when he was being honest with himself, was truly lucky to have her in his life.

Yvonne, by comparison, looked to have been purpose-built for the bedroom. A body that was all curves. Padded in all the right areas. She moved like a cat; sinuous and prowling. Smokey eyes.

A gaze dripping with sex and sweating lust

, he thought to himself.

Oooh,

I should write that down. That's gold.

He looked around for his paper and pen, but all of the surfaces in the room were curiously empty. All the objects that normally lived on those surfaces were dashed across the floor, and the normally shiny and clean surfaces looked to be quite dull, as if some fluid had gathered, dried, and left a residue.

Every

surface.

Hamish looked back at the two of them and paused as he tried to figure out the right words. "Did... Did you two..." He pointed at his desk, and blinked when they shook their heads in unison.

"We didn't have time," Yvonne said.

"We had to trade off to keep up with you," Ebba said, biting her lip again.

"Not that I didn't want to," Yvonne said, looking hungrily at the brunette.

"Oh! Me either!" Ebba pushed herself up and turned toward the other woman. "Watching him take you...no." She looked back at Hamish and blushed. "He was

pounding

you. Watching that was just... once I got past the envy, Gods, it was incredible!"

"I know exactly how you feel. I mean, the breaks were necessary, but part of me never wanted him to stop."

Hamish's jaw, sensing that it would need to open wider to accommodate his growing astonishment, put in a work order with the skull to become temporarily unhinged with an option to become so permanently. His skull sent back a polite but firm rejection note, citing numerous prohibitive anatomical, logistical, and zoning issues.

"Would you like that?" Ebba asked eagerly. "Would you like to see the two of us together?"

"Uhhhh."

"If this were any other day," Yvonne replied, dragging a fingertip along Ebba's chin and drawing her attention, "I would fuck you until you were shriveled and dry. But for him, we will make love."

"

Yes

," Ebba moaned, and the two of them drew together as if magnetized. Their lips. Their hands. Their hips. Their breasts. Yvonna rolled onto her back, and Ebba moved over her smoothly. Straddling her. Both of them naked. Both of them so wet that just the slightest shifting of their thighs filled the air with a sweet symphony of wet sounds. Ebba looked back over her shoulder and smiled. "Come up here, Baby. I wouldn't want you to miss a second of this."

The world slowed for Hamish as he crawled toward the top of the bed. No set of events he could imagine connected the dots between where he had been yesterday and the present. He also couldn't figure out why, if he'd been blackout drunk the night before, he

wasn't

extremely hung over. However, he had a rule about 'not taking on tomorrow's problems today', and that certainly extended to yesterday's problems as well.

He whimpered as he watched Ebba slide over Yvonne. Kissing her. Ebba's large breasts pooling and settling into Yvonne's larger. Legs writhing. Flexing and curling. The intensity of their gazes, toward each other, was only broken for brief moments as they each looked to him periodically to make sure he was watching. To make sure he was enjoying.

"Hooo-lee shit."

Ebba's hands sank into the bed as she braced herself, and Yvonne took advantage of that to, in equal parts, maul and caress the woman above her. Ebba whimpered into the kiss, and through her nose, as Yvonne worked her body over. Massaging. Kneading. Squeezing. Hamish slowly became aware that he too had been naked the whole time, as his raging erection deposited a drop of precum onto his thigh.

Yvonne's arm shot out, instantly, stretching the full length, and took hold of his cock. "Let me mmmmmf," she murmured in between kisses, "let me take

-mmmmf-

care of that."

"A-a-actually," Hamish said, voice cracking. He coughed, clearing his throat while she stroked him slowly and both of them stopped to look at him. "Actually, I think I would like to be sucked off right now."

Yvonne and Ebba looked at each other. Without saying a word, Ebba pushed herself down, sliding along Yvonne's body until she settled in between Yvonne's thighs. As soon as her path was clear, Yvonne twisted at the hip and leaned over to take his cock into her mouth. Hamish slapped both hands over his mouth, his eyes bugged wide, as he watched the most beautiful woman he had ever known happily eat out another beautiful woman

so that the other woman had room to fellate him

. It made no sense to him, at all, and yet, there it was.

Wet, emphatic moaning overlapping wet, emphatic moaning. Slurping. Licking. Yvonne lifted one of her hands from his thighs to brush her long, golden locks behind one ear, and stared up at him as she consumed him inch by inch. Her eyes fluttered, lids reacting to instinct, as he tickled the back of her throat and more. He reached back with one hand and planted it for balance on the bed, affording himself an even better view as Yvonne bobbed up and down. Her full lips stretched around his shaft. Her cheeks sunk in as she pulled back, applying a slight vacuum around his head, while the tip of her tongue teased the narrow opening. Down fast, and then slowly back out. Letting her lips drag along his flesh. The way her lips stretched made his cock look even thicker.

Down fast, and then slowly back out.

Ebba whimpered happily, watching from the corner of her eye while she made love to Yvonne's clit. Long, delicate lashes with her tongue, pushing the sensitive nerve bundle back and forth. Bathing it in as much attention as saliva. Her lids hung heavily over her eyes, and she took deep breaths in through her nostrils. Inhaling the scent of Yvonne's glorious pussy. Her whimpers dropped in pitch, becoming moans. Long and low.

Hamish squeaked in disbelief as he moved his right hand down, over his chest. Yvonna moaned softly as his fingers drifted over her scalp, and moaned louder when he grabbed a fistful of golden strands. She nodded, betraying her need. Her eyes leaked happy tears as she stared up at him, as he both pushed down on her head and thrust upward from the bed.

"Holy shit," he squealed. "Holy shit."

"Fugh yeth," Ebba moaned, tongue buried deep within pink folds. "Yuth her." Yvonne squawked in emphatic agreement.

More thrusting, less head movement. Yvonne, try as she might, could barely keep her eyes open as her throat was invaded repeatedly. Tears ran outward, around the edges of her cheeks. More thrusting. All thrusting. No head movement. Hamish groaned loudly. Every time he hilted against her lips, the force of the movement set her heavy breasts bouncing.

Yvonne's twisting and writhing increased by an order of magnitude as Ebba brought two fingers to bear on her pussy, rifling them synchronously and harmoniously with Hamish. Yvonne's muffled screams heralded her first orgasm of the morning, and she wrapped her legs tightly around Ebba's head and shoulders in a messy lock. Hamish could only take the sensual, visual, and aural assault for so long before he too was on the very edge of a profound, sense-shattering orgasm.

"Safe some fou meh!" Ebba squealed, adding the proverbial blade of straw to the back of an overtaxed camel.

Hamish grabbed the back of Yvonne's head and held her down tightly. Pressing her face against his groin. His cock pulsed, discharging semen so quickly that a bit of overflow trickled out of her nostrils. Her face turned beet red, and her first gasp of air was drawn as powerfully as if she had swam up from the bottom of the oceans. Wet, hacking coughs, clearing the airways, and as Yvonne slowly returned to herself, so too did Ebba slowly crawl over her and push her flat on her back.

"Sharing is caring," she whispered, as she kissed Yvonne deeply. With a fiery passion Hamish had never seen in her before. Her hands were in Yvonne's hair, brushing it back and out of the way, and then they were rolling. Ebba on her back. Yvonne on top. Passing saliva and cum back and forth until the fluids were indistinguishable.

"I have to go!" Hamish shouted abruptly.

"Already?" Ebba whined, looking sideways without quite breaking the kiss. "Do you want us to—"

"No time!" He already had his pants sliding up past his knees, and a button-down shirt loosely draped around his shoulders. "You two just stay right there and... uh... keep doing that!"

"Done," Yvonne whispered. She carefully adjusted Ebba's chin so that they were facing each other again, and there were no more words. He stopped, once he was nearly dressed, and stared in awe for a few moments. Their fervor to do as he said was tangible.

And then he opened his front door.

Hamish thought he'd been surprised earlier, when he woke up to find two beautiful women in his bed, but the throng camped outside of his meager apartment, who immediately began cheering his name, corrected his underestimation.

***

The Narrator grunted in frustration as a swell of noise roused him from his recuperative sleep. He grunted again, louder, to no effect. The dull roar increased, reverberating and pounding in his poor brain. He pulled one of his extra pillows over on top of his head and wrapped his arms around them. Even muffled, the world outside was being extremely inconsiderate.

Banging. Louder voices, almost distinguishable through the pillows. He peeked out just in time to see his door burst open, sending shards of his doorframe skittering across the floor.

"Oh!" Hamish laughed, as he stepped across the threshold. "I don't know that that was

quite

necessary, but thank you!"

"What in the hells!" The Narrator whispered harshly, eyes slitted, as he crawled out of his bed. "That was my

door!

"

"Yeah, sorry about that!" Hamish turned and tried to push the door shut behind him, but it creaked open again as soon as he took his hands off of it. "Gort is a little eager."

"Who is Gort?!"

"He's... uh..." Hamish pushed the door shut again, but the cracked wood swung in again on it's bent hinges almost immediately. "He's one of the Harrislots."

"The

who?

"

"Harrislots," Hamish repeated. "Jalinda suggested it."

"Who—"

"It's like a mixture of Harris and Harlot." This time, he opened the door wider and peeked back out. "Could you hold this shut for me?" This time, the door stayed closed, and Hamish nodded happily to himself. "They're sluts for me; that's the implication. I'm not sure if that's going to stick, though. It's a bit complex, so I've got an exploratory committee out there now working on some alternatives."

"Is that ruckus outside

your

doing?"

"Yeah! That's... Oh." Hamish smiled sheepishly as he really looked at The Narrator for the first time. "I forgot." He scampered back over to the door, but it wouldn't open when he tugged on it. After a few seconds of futile pulling, he sighed and knocked on the door. "Hey," he said, as he stuck his head through the door. "Could you guys, like, keep it down out here?" Just like that, there was silence. Hamish nodded in satisfaction and shut the door again, although it swung open as soon as his back was turned. "Better?"