Several things happened over the next few months.
Aubrette helped me decipher and decode several new rituals in the book I had come to think of as my spellbook. I received the reagents and tools I needed, and with her help I learned to perform a couple of them successfully. Unfortunately, more than half of the new rituals were, to my mind, useless. Glamour as a power was tightly tied to the magics of the Fae. While there were denizens of Faerie who had the ability to, for example, heal wounds or change into animals, the Sidhe specialized in charming and manipulating minds, and it was those rituals that my Fae concubine could assist with.
Don't get me wrong - the ability to make myself look like someone else was
damn cool
, but it also wasn't something I really had much call for in day to day life. Further, since that particular ritual made other people see something that wasn't there, it turned out to be ineffective against cameras. I had Cindy record me with my cell phone the first time I managed the ritual, so I could see what I looked like, only to be disappointed when I discovered that as far as the camera was concerned, nothing changed.
Worse still, several of the other rituals left a bad taste in my mouth just learning about them. I had enough of a moral conundrum around having Cindy and Aubrette tied to me. Some of the rituals my tall fairy was able to decipher revolved around compelling people in one way or another - either by temporarily wrapping Glamour around myself so that I became so fascinating that people would obey me, or by lacing another's thoughts with Glamour such that they were compelled to behave a certain way. I had already decided, months back when I first met my Sin Demon, that I wasn't the kind of person who would force that kind of thing on anyone.
Still, with Aubrette's help I was able to master a couple of rituals that were both ethically sound and practically useful. Specifically, I had added two services to my repertoire of offerings for sale: Motivation, and Sleep. The former was vaguely adjacent to the compulsions I avoided, but instead of forcing people to do any
specific
thing, it made it easier for them to do whatever they set out to. Kind've like a magical Adderall. The latter made me laugh when I realized what I could do, and it did not take long before I had a couple repeat customers in my contact list - chronic insomniacs who were willing to pay for a solid night's sleep.
A couple weeks after Aubrette joined my household, I finally introduced her to Sara. The apartment complex rules about long term guests existed, but I knew the pretty hispanic landlady never made it a point to enforce them, so I wasn't worried about her knowing that I had the two women living with me. A bigger concern was that she would figure out that neither woman was actually human. I solved that hurdle in a particularly ingenious way: I told her.
I don't know if Sara fully believed me when I informed her that my new roommates were a demon and a fairy, but I was actually consistently paying rent on time, so she didn't make an issue of it. More importantly, I talked her into taking Cindy and Aubrette out shopping somewhere
other
than the mall. Maybe the outfits my fae concubine came home with weren't quite as trendy as her initial few, but thanks to Sara I didn't go broke trying to let her build up a small wardrobe.
I'm not entirely sure what the three women talked about while off on their shopping trips, but I did notice my short landlady - barely taller than Cindy - near my apartment more often after that. I was mildly concerned she thought I was sex trafficking the girls, or abusing them somehow, or something, but she never did more than eye me speculatively, so I didn't press the issue.
Aubrette officially started her cleaning service. We printed out some flyers and dropped them around the apartment building common areas - with Sara's blessing - and she got some customers. Not many at first, but word spread and her business picked up. It didn't offer a ton of additional income, but since her business expenses were basically null thanks to her unique power, it meant money started to pile up in my bank account.
I got an accountant. She was a grizzled old battleaxe of a woman who brooked no nonsense, took no shit, and had a rasp in her voice reflecting a pack-a-day habit she had never broken. I absolutely loved her - the first meeting I had with her, she pounced on any evasions I tried to make about where any of my money came from and where it went, refusing to drop the topic until she had shaken the full truth from me. And then she proceeded to swivel one of her surprisingly new computer monitors around so I could follow along as she helped me structure my finances.
I have absolutely no idea if Trudy - Ms. Gertrude Miller - actually believed in what I was doing at all. She certainly never asked for my services. Instead, she helped me set up a business bank account and file my taxes, without making me want to tear my hair out. Aubrette told me that I should hire her as my seneschal when I founded my House. I told her that I didn't think Trudy would accept, but that I would keep her in mind.
I learned more about magic. Not just deciphering rituals from the book, but between Aubrette and Cindy I started to learn a little about how magic worked. Not much, admittedly; both women were enthusiastic, but the direct connection they had to their inherent magics wasn't a good analog to how I interacted with magic other than my gift.
What I did figure out was that infernal magic
tended
to revolve around the idea of sacrifice. Usually sacrificing in one area to make something happen in another area, but also sometimes literal sacrifice. Fortunately that didn't always mean chickens and altars and entrails (or worse), but most infernal rituals held some component of giving up something - such as the diamond dust used to summon Cindy - to get something else. Like, again, Cindy. Fortunately, whatever cosmic scales once balanced those had the forces of capitalism and the internet leaning heavily on one end. I guess the infernal stock exchange, or whatever, hadn't been updated in the last millennium because many of the things that were exchanged to fuel rituals were dirt cheap now.
Glamour, in turn, leveraged the mind's ability to make up stories. Or perhaps the universe's ability to make up stories. Most of the things Glamour could do either twisted how people perceived the world, or - as in Aubrette's Noble Talent - basically asked the universe 'What if?'. That, unfortunately, was not any cheaper or easier now than it was when my spellbook was written. It wasn't necessarily harder now either though. People today were just as likely to want to imagine a different world than people were a thousand years ago.
I picked up several new customers, to the point that my calendar filled up. It turned out that Cindy - once directly ordered - was a perfectly able secretary and receptionist. True to the promise she made within days of being summoned, she was perfectly happy and compliant fulfilling my orders on the mortal realm, even if those orders were as mundane as answering the phone and using a calendar app.
New customers lead to a phenomenon I had literally never experienced in my life: Disposable income. Not a ton of it, but enough that I didn't feel bad about minor things like giving the ladies a clothing budget, or going to the doctor. The former of those resulted in, among other things, waking up to Cindy and Aubrette kneeling side by side next to the bed one morning, wearing identical revealing french maid costumes, the latter having been coaxed into purchasing one to match the costume my Sin Demon had worn the morning I would first meet Aubrette. The redhead was flushed with embarrassment from the moment I woke up to find the two of them awaiting 'the young master's orders'. She was also soaked, and I enjoyed every single moment of watching the two of them putter around my apartment uselessly dusting already clean surfaces with a feather duster, flashing tits and asses and sopping wet pussies.
The doctor's visit - something I had put off probably far too long - forced me to confront something I had suspected for a while but hadn't wanted to admit. I was taller. Not enormously so, but I was now at least eye to eye with Aubrette.
Cindy theorized that it had to do with the Oath my Sidhe vassal had sworn to me, and the magic - specifically Glamour - that was flowing through my body as a result. Aubrette admitted that she hadn't ever heard of a Noble Sidhe swearing fealty to a mortal before, so she couldn't tell me that it was impossible. She had been stripped of her title when she was exiled from Faerie, but the mantle of power that went with it had remained. When she had first inherited that mantle centuries before, she had grown from being slightly short for a High Sidhe to her current height.
That night, my Sin Demon - kneeling between my legs while I played video games on the couch - nuzzled her cheek against my cock and told me that it had also gotten bigger. I wasn't actually sure that I believed her, but watching the way it forced her throat to bulge when she swallowed it a few minutes later, I decided I didn't care.
Some discreet inquiries through some of my earliest customers put me on the track of someone who could - supposedly - fabricate identities for the ladies. It was likely going to be expensive, assuming I could even convince the guy to do business with me, but I got that ball rolling as soon as I was able. The very last thing I wanted to happen was that either Cindy or Aubrette was discovered as an 'illegal alien' and detained away from me. Both cases would lead to disaster - either for Aubrette, or for everyone
around
Cindy - so I figured basically any price I could afford to pay was worth it to make that never happen.
That would likely take a while to pan out, so I tried hard to keep the girls low profile in the meantime.
I also had an incredible amount of sex.
